Always Love
by Naley23KG
Summary: Their son had just been kidnapped by the woman who had already tried to tear their family apart. What now? - A fic from the missing four weeks between 5x12 and 5x13, will then continue with some bits we didn't see and extras from then on! T to be safe.
1. Stay Away

**A/N: **Okay guys. This is my first ever fic, so PLEASE forgive me for the writing style, etc. It will get better as you read on.

It's set in the missing four weeks we didn't see, from Lucas's wedding - 5x13, and then I'm planning on going further with little snippets of scenes (to make up for the lack of NH scenes in late S5... lol!) and then onto S6, etc. I won't go AU, but will have (hopefully) cute extras that weren't on screen, but will tie into what we did see. Not sure how far I'll go, might be continuous depending on if people enjoy it! I've written a couple of chapters of this story so far, but I don't want to keep going if no one reads it. So PLEASE read and review, future chapters should hopefully get better... I wrote these a little while ago but only got the courage to upload & publish them now.

You'll notice that it jumps between Haley's thoughts and Nathan's, but hopefully you'll get the gist of who's narrating what when you read the first sentence of that section.

I'll say it again: **please review!** I won't bother continuing with the story if I don't get at least a couple of reviews. Whether it's positive or negative feedback, please do it. If you do read it and like it and review it, I'll try and update regularly!

* * *

I grabbed Jamie's hand to take him back into the house, away from Dan, and from Lucas and Nathan who had obviously just been fighting him. But I felt Jamie slow down. He let go of my hand, turned around and spoke.

"Grandpa... thank you."

I was shocked. Dan may have gotten Jamie back, but he was in no position to be thanked. Not by my son. I grabbed Jamie's hand and ushered him into the house. I caught Nathan's eye - he looked as bewildered as I was at Jamie's thank you to Dan.

I took Jamie back into the house to all the rest of the people in there, who were all discussing both the shock of Dan being the person to take Jamie home and their great relief about Jamie actually being safe. Brooke looked up from her conversation with Peyton and ran over and hugged me. I hugged her back.

"I am so glad he's safe, Haley. Everything's okay now," she said soothingly.

_Not really_, I thought.

"Hey buddy!" she squeezed Jamie. "You don't know how happy I am to see you safe!"

"Well I'm home now, I'm fine!" he replied. I watched him hug Brooke. I didn't want to stop looking at him - I was so scared that if I looked away for a second he could be snatched away again.

"Haley, we're gonna take off now. I'm so glad he's safe. We all are," she said.

"I know," I said, smiling at her and giving her a hug goodbye. "I'll see you soon."

"Bye Haley. Take care, I'll call you soon," said Peyton as she hugged me.

Everyone else followed after them out the door, saying goodbye to me and telling Jamie how happy they were to see him safe. Skills gave Jamie a huge bear-hug.

"I'm sorry, little man. You got no idea how much. So glad you're safe. See you soon." He looked up at me, looking so unsure, and then went out the door.

Karen, Andy and Lily were the only ones left, and as Lily was saying goodbye to Jamie, Karen gave me a hug.

"Oh, Haley. I know today has been awful for you. But you can relax now. He's fine. He's safe."

"I know he is. I was just... I was just so scared."

"I know, sweetie. We all were. We'll get going now, we're leaving Tree Hill in a couple days but we'll see you before then."

"Yeah, definitely. Thanks Karen. Bye Andy, and Lily," I said, waving them goodbye as Lucas and Nathan came in the door.

"Mom, you leaving?" asked Lucas.

"Yeah, we'll see you at home," Karen said, giving him a hug. "I love you, kid."

"Uncle Lucas!" exclaimed Jamie, running to him as Lucas picked him up and hugged him. Karen, Andy and Lily left.

"Oh, I am so happy you're safe, buddy," said Lucas, embracing Jamie.

"So where's aunt Lindsey?" he asked innocently.

I looked at Lucas. He looked pretty upset at the mention of her name.

"Well, buddy, Lindsey's gone away for a little while, but she'll be back," said Lucas. I caught his eye. Who was he kidding? "Right, I'm gonna go put some ice on my hand," he said, and went through to the kitchen. I noticed the cuts on his knuckles. Jamie followed him through. I looked at Nathan's hand and, sure enough, there on his right knuckles were grazes.

"Do you need ice, too?" I asked quietly.

"No, it's okay. Is it.. is it okay with you if I come around tomorrow?" he asked me nervously.

"Yeah, of course," I said. "Jamie would love that."

"_Jamie_ would love that," Nathan sighed quietly.

"Nathan, I - "

"It's okay, Hales. Can I talk to him before I leave?" he asked. There was despair in his eyes.

"You don't have to ask my permission, Nathan," I said. "He's your son."

"He's _our _son," Nathan said.

"Nathan - "

"Forget it, I'm sorry Haley. I shouldn't be making you feel like this. I'll go talk to him then I'll get going."

I said nothing. I don't know why I didn't. I just watched him go through to the kitchen, with so much sadness in his eyes.

I heard them talking and then Nathan, carrying Jamie, and Lucas came through to where I was, Lucas with an ice pack on his hand.

"We're gonna take off now," Lucas said. "Bye, buddy," he said to Jamie. "You take care of your mom, and don't let her worry about you okay?"

"All right," he said. "Are you going too daddy?" He looked up at Nathan. I could tell Nathan was struggling not to let his eyes catch mine.

"Yeah, Jamie, I'm going to Uncle Lucas's. But I'm gonna come over tomorrow and see you, okay buddy?"

"Okay," Jamie said sadly. "I miss you, daddy," he added quietly.

"I miss you too, son. I love you. So much, more than you could possibly ever know, okay?" Nathan said, kissing the top of Jamie's head. "You be good. And don't ever leave your mom's sight, you hear me?"

"I hear you daddy. I love you too."

"Bye Haley," said Lucas.

"Bye, Luke. About today... I'm so sorry about Lindsey, I haven't really been able to talk to you about that, what with Jamie..."

"Haley, forget about it! I understand. Don't worry about it. I'll see you tomorrow sometime."

"Okay," I said, giving him a hug. "Bye."

Nathan put Jamie down and then looked at me. I gave him a half-smile and said "See you tomorrow."

"Yeah."

I looked into his eyes. His gorgeous, blue eyes. He was looking intensely back at me. He suddenly walked over to me and embraced me with a hug. I hugged right back, my arms around his neck, as if I was clinging onto him for dear life. I felt safe in his arms. I felt safe with him here. After a few moments he let me go, and looked into my eyes longingly. I looked back up at him.

"Bye, Nathan," I whispered.

"Bye Hales."

And out the door they went.

"Momma, I'm tired," said Jamie.

"Oh, buddy, of course you are, you've had a horrible day," I said. I walked over to him and gave him a big hug. "I can't believe I almost lost you." Tears started filling up in my eyes. I clung to him tighter, as though doing so would stop him from disappearing.

"But you didn't lose me momma, I'm right here," he said.

"I know you are, Jamie. And I'm so, so happy. How about you come sleep in my bed tonight, huh?" I suggested.

"Yes please, I don't wanna be by myself," he answered.

The tears started rolling down my face. "Oh, don't worry about that, buddy. I won't leave you alone. I love you so much."

"I love you too," he said. I was so relieved that he was in my arms. This day had gone on for so long. It didn't seem like just this morning that me, Jamie and Luke were driving around.

As I waited outside the bathroom for Jamie to clean his teeth and get ready for bed, I thought about Nathan. About how when I said I wanted a divorce just over a week ago I of course didn't mean it. I was just in such a state of shock at the fact that Jamie had just been lying face down in the pool. I said it because I was already so mad at Nathan and the fact that we had been arguing instead of watching Jamie when he fell in the pool just made me even more angry at him, so I said I wanted a divorce. I had seen how hurt he looked, but at that moment all I cared about was making sure Jamie was okay.

I thought about the fact that Carrie had kissed Nathan. Even thinking about her now that she had taken Jamie made me even more angry. I knew the kiss was obviously her fault, and her doing - not Nathan's. I knew he wouldn't do that. But I didn't know what to believe, especially as he had lied about it. He didn't tell me until I asked him about it, and the fact that he'd kept quiet about it was as bad as the fact that it happened.

I thought about the fact that at Lucas and Lindsey's bachelor/bachelorette party I told Nathan I was done trying with him. When I said it, I was in such a confused state of mind because Jamie was still so upset about him being gone, and Skills had just told me that it was in fact me who had lost sight of things when it came to our family. So when I told Nathan I was done trying, I was just confused. It was true in a way - I was fed up of him always having something to apologise for. The accident and the darkness he went into for months afterwards was so hard on me, and only a few weeks later he had slipped up again. I really was tired of it.

I thought about later that night when I overheard Nathan talking to Jamie in his bed. They missed eachother. They missed living in the same house. I thought to myself - they shouldn't be feeling this way. They should both be here. Hearing Nathan tell Jamie that it wasn't because of me that he couldn't come home surprised me - it was because of me. But Nathan knew that he had done wrong, and hearing him admit that to his son just reminded me of the fact that it wasn't wrong of me to 'try and change' him. He was such an amazing man.

But I was still not ready to have him back. I wasn't sure why, but I just felt a bit insecure having him around after all of it. We had hardly gotten back to normal after he recovered from the accident when Carrie started messing things up, and the thought of him keeping quiet about the flirting just made me not ready to have Nathan come home. I didn't know when that would be.

* * *

"Hey, man, you alright?" Luke asked me in the car back to his place. He looked at me from the road and saw me with my head in my hands.

"Yeah, man, I'm good," I replied. Pretty unconvincingly, I guess.

"Nate, I know confusing it is with Dan being the one to save Jamie and all... Hell, I'm confused too. But just be glad that Jamie is back safe."

"Yeah, that's just something else to add to the list of a crap day. My son went missing. Haley told me I should have been with him, and started blaming herself for not letting me home. My murderer father brought Jamie home from being kidnapped by the crazy bitch who I should have fired weeks ago. And Haley is still being distant, and I have to visit Jamie tomorrow. _Visit_. I shouldn't have to visit my own house, man."

Lucas just looked at me. "I'm sorry man. Not much I can say. This has not been a good day."

"Oh, Luke, man, I'm sorry. I'm making it all about me. Look... what happened when you went to go get Lindsey?"

"She left."

"Lucas, if she really is the person you're supposed to spend the rest of your life with, she will come back."

"Thanks, man."

We drew up at the house. When we walked in, Karen, Andy and Lily were in the living room.

"Hey boys," Karen greeted us.

"Hey Karen," I replied.

"You guys want me to make you some hot chocolate?" she asked us.

"That'd be great, mom," Luke said to her.

"And Nathan?" she asked me.

"Uh.. sure, thanks," I said. Anything beat going to bed - correction, the couch - alone.

"Hey, Lily," said Luke, beginning to play with his little sister. I just watched them. What I wouldn't give to be home with Jamie and Haley.

"You alright, man?" asked Andy.

"Oh, yeah, I'm good," I said.

"Well, it's understandable that you're going to be pretty sensitive when it comes to kids, after what happened with your son today," he said. He was right. Seeing Lily just made me want to know Jamie was safe. Hearing Haley tell me that Jamie was missing today outside the church was almost as scary as last week when we saw him face-down in the pool. Even thinking about it made me anxious.

"Yeah, you're right. God... I don't ever want to feel that way again. I want my son to be safe."

"Yeah, I know what you mean. I'm so protective over Lily, and she's not even my daughter. She's a little angel. I was so worried today, I can't imagine what it would have been like to be you. Just be glad that he's home safe, Nathan. That's all you can do," Andy said, trying to reassure me.

"Here's hot chocolate!" Karen came through with mugs of hot chocolate for all of us.

"Thank you," I said quietly. I didn't really want to talk about Jamie anymore. It made me feel horrible.

I spent the next hour just sitting in the living room watching Luke, Karen, Andy and Lily all play and talk together. They often tried to include me, but they could tell I wasn't really in the mood so didn't pressurize me. They just wanted me to feel better.

"Well, it's well past your bedtime, missy," said Andy, picking up Lily. "But I guess it's okay since it's a special occasion - you get to spend some time with Lucas!"

"Yep! I miss you when we're away, Lucas," she said to him.

"You too, sis," said Lucas.

I was surprised at how strong he'd been all evening. He had been left alone at the alter today, and after talking to her he'd been left by her again. Why was it that he managed to do so much better after such a horrible day than me? It made me feel even more weak and worthless. They all went to bed, and I was left on the couch. Another night. Alone. I put on a pair of pyjama bottoms and an old T-shirt, turned the light out and lay on the couch. I didn't even bother fetching the blanket. So many thoughts darted through my mind, all of them concerning blaming myself for the day's events. Then I began thinking what could have happened if Dan hadn't brought Jamie back. If Carrie had kept him. We would maybe never have seen him again, and it would all be my fault. Tonight's sleep was going to be restless.

* * *

"Nathan! Nathan, you okay?"

I opened my eyes and found myself panting, out of breath. I was on the floor next to the couch, and I could feel sweat on my face. I remembered that I had just had a nightmare - Carrie was walking out of the church holding Jamie and when I ran after them they sped up and I couldn't catch up. Jamie was crying and calling out "Momma! Daddy!" but Carrie kept running. When we turned the corner we were at the river court, and Carrie was stepping onto a small boat with Jamie and he had tape over his mouth. Carrie was threatening to throw him into the water. That was the last part of the dream I remembered.

"Sorry man, bad dream," I said to Lucas, who was hovering next to me. It was morning.

"Oh yeah? About what?" he asked, concerned.

"Uh... nothing," I replied, embarrassed that he had seen me having a nightmare.

"Come on, man, you were shouting. It sounded really bad."

I realised that I was still lying on the floor, so I got up and sat on the couch.

"That Carrie was taking Jamie and about to throw him in the water," I replied, shakily.

"Oh, man. That's horrible. But Jamie's okay, remember that. You'll be seeing him in a couple hours," he said.

"Yeah," I replied shortly. I went to go get changed.

I woke up with a start. I had had a scary dream, but I couldn't really remember it. All I knew was that I woke up with a jerk of my leg muscle and was so relieved to see Jamie sleeping soundly by my side. I kissed the top of his head. Yesterday had been one of the worst days of my life, and knowing that he wouldn't have come home if it weren't for Dan made me shudder. For the next little while - scratch that, for the rest of time - I was going to protect Jamie with every ounce of strength I had. Nothing bad was ever going to happen to him again. Ever.

I looked at my phone to check the time, and my phone started to ring. I noticed Jamie stirring beside me.

I looked at the name that was flashing up on the screen: Nathan.

"Hello?" I answered.

"Hey, it's me."

"Hey."

"So... is it still okay if I come over today? To... to see Jamie."

"Yeah, sure."

"What time do you want me to come?"

"Um, whenever... how about 12?"

"Okay, see you then."

"Bye."

I felt so stupid. I should not have been having an awkward conversation with my husband. But I didn't know how else to be.

Jamie was awake now.

"Was that daddy?" he asked happily.

"Yep, that was daddy," I replied.

"Is he coming over today?" he eagerly asked me.

"Yep, you'll get to see him in a couple of hours!" I said, trying to match his excited tone, but failing miserably.

"He won't be staying though, will he," he said, a bit more down-hearted.

"No, buddy, not today," I replied. "But hey, what do you say we get up and I can make you pancakes for breakfast!" I said, trying to make him feel better.

"Whatever," he said, getting up and going to the bathroom.

I sighed. I hated being the bad guy in all of this. But I was just going to have to deal with it. At that moment I was just so happy that Jamie was safe, and so I decided to stop spending too much time worrying about being the bad guy.

* * *

A few hours later, there was a knock at the door.

"Daddy!" Jamie yelled and ran to answer the door. I stayed sitting at the breakfast bar.

I heard him answer the door and squeal when Nathan picked him up.

"Hey buddy!" I heard him say. "How you doing?"

"I'm fine. Wanna play?" he asked him eagerly.

Nathan walked into the kitchen, still carrying Jamie, and looked at me.

"Sure, Jamie. Downstairs or upstairs?"

"In my room, I can't be bothered to take toys down," said Jamie, smiling.

"All right, lazy bones," said Nathan, putting him down. "I'll be right up."

I realised that him saying that meant he wanted to talk to me.

"How's he been?" he asked me.

"He's been fine... a lot better than me, actually," I replied. "When I ask him about it, he just doesn't really say anything and says that Grandpa Dan saved him and that he's okay."

"Dan. God. Okay, well if he talks about it, I'll let you know," he said, looking at me unsurely, and then turned to walk upstairs.

* * *

I was so happy to be with Jamie. Just seeing him smile, feeling him wanting to be picked up, hearing him laugh and speak... it was amazing. I had spent the last 12 or so hours longing to be in a room with him, to be able to protect him, just in case. I'd been playing with him in his room for nearly two hours when I decided to ask him about the kidnapping.

"So, Jamie, are you okay after yesterday?" I asked cautiously.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he said happily. "I was rescued by Grandpa Dan."

"Yes, Jamie, I know. And we're all so happy that you're safe now, but... it's okay to talk about it. If you're scared it will happen again, tell us, or if you're upset about all of it, it's okay to cry and talk to mommy or daddy."

"I don't need to cry. I'm fine! I want to see Grandpa Dan," he said.

"Jamie... I don't think you'll be seeing Grandpa Dan again. I'm sorry, but he's not a good man."

"But daddy, you said that you were on a time-out because you'd been bad. And I still get to see you!" he said.

"Not as bad as Grandpa Dan, Jamie, trust me."

Jamie continued fiddling with a toy dinosaur. "Okay. So... is your time-out almost over daddy?" he asked quietly.

"I don't know, Jamie. I hope so."

"You said that last week. I miss you, daddy," he said.

_Way to break my heart even further_, I thought.

"I miss you too, James. So much. And I love you. But don't be too upset, cause I'm still going to see you every single day if that's okay with your mom, okay?" I said putting my arm around him, trying to reassure him.

"Okay." He hugged me tightly. We held on to eachother for a couple of minutes, when my phone started to buzz in my pocket.

"Sorry Jamie, that's my phone," I said, reaching into my pocket.

"Who is it?" he asked excitedly. Phonecalls always made him excited for some reason.

"It's your uncle Lucas! Hey, man," I said, answering the call.

"Hey Nate. Mom's making dinner, but I haven't got any pasta at the house. Could you pick some up on your way home? Like... as soon as possible?" Lucas said.

"Sure man, I'll come right now. See you soon," I said, before hanging up the phone.

"Are you leaving now, daddy?" Jamie asked.

"Yeah, man. Sorry. But I'll go downstairs and ask your mom when it's good for me to come tomorrow, okay?" I said.

I went downstairs, Jamie following me.

"Momma! What time can daddy come over tomorrow?" he asked Haley.

"Oh sweetie, I don't know. Same time?" she suggested, not looking at me but at Jamie.

"But what about school?" he asked.

"Well, I was thinking that you might want to take a few days off school, after what happened yesterday," she said to him.

"Mom, I don't want to stay off school! I like school!" Jamie retorted.

"Well you definitely got that from your mom and not from me," I commented, hoping to get a smile out of Haley. Instead she kept talking to Jamie.

"Jamie, you went through a really bad experience. I think staying off school would be a good thing," she said firmly.

"Mom, I don't want to!" Jamie said, getting mad.

"Jamie, how about you go start tidying upstairs, and I'll talk to your mom, okay?" I said, trying to prevent an argument.

"Okay," he said, trailing off upstairs.

"You really think it's a good idea to keep him off school?" I asked her.

"Well... yeah, I do. It was a traumatic experience, and I think he needs a few days to get over it," she said.

"He needs a few days to get over it, or you do?" I said carefully, not wanting to tread on any toes.

She looked at me, and sighed.

"You're right. Ugh, you're right." She sighed again. "I already called Principal Turner to tell him I wouldn't be in for the next few days and he understood. I just don't want to be apart from him, I hate letting him out of my sight," she said nervously.

"He's been out of your sight for the past few hours, and you've been okay," I pointed out.

"Yeah, but he was in the house, and he was with you," she said, looking up at me.

Even those few, simple words gave me hope.

"Well how about he goes to school tomorrow, and you just spend the day trying to relax and feel better about it all," I said. "I think keeping him off school for a few days would just make you not want to let him go back after those days, and that wouldn't be good. And he obviously wants to go."

"Yeah. Yeah, okay. Well how about you come over in the evening then, around six. You can spend time with him a while before bed," she suggested.

"Okay, sounds good. Thanks, Hales," I said, turning to leave. I was almost at the door when she spoke.

"For what?"

"What?" I asked.

"You said thank you, and I'm asking, for what?" she said.

"For letting me come over and spend time with Jamie. I know it's hard, with us... but..."

"Yeah... it's okay. He misses you, so it's good for you to spend time with him," she said.

I nodded at her, and left. _"He _misses you." _He. _It was always about Jamie, never her. When she said that I tried to tell myself that she was just using Jamie in conversation to explain how _she_ was really feeling. _Jamie _would love to see you. _Jamie _misses you.

* * *

**Reviews = gold. They will let me know if I should continue and post chapter 2, and may inspire me to write better! :) Thanks for reading. **


	2. Paint the Silence

**A/N:** Thank you sooo much for reviewing guys, it really means a lot, they made me smile. Glad you enjoyed it! This chapter is a bit longer - tell me if it's too long! Haha, I'm new to the whole fic-writing biz so I'm not sure what's a good length for chapters to be. So read and please continue to **review!**

* * *

The next morning, I woke up the same way I had the previous morning, this time with Karen above me when I opened my eyes.

"Nathan, are you alright?" she asked worriedly.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I said, taking deep breaths. I had had another nightmare where this time Carrie was not only kidnapping Jamie, but Haley too, and was about to chuck them off of her stupid little boat.

"You're obviously not fine," she said. "Andy, could you go fetch me a cold, wet facecloth?" she said to Andy as he came in the room.

"Sure," he said, turning around to obey her.

"I'm fine, seriously," I said. "It was just a dream."

"Nathan, it may have been a dream but I don't think I've ever heard anyone yell that loudly in their sleep," she said. "It must have been horrible. Do you want to talk about it?"

Karen was always so great at comforting. I remembered that day on the rivercourt, after Haley had gone on tour, and she just let me cry into her arms. She was definitely something. I knew I could talk to her.

"It was Carrie. She was kidnapping Haley and Jamie and I couldn't catch up to save them. She took them on a boat and tied them up and nearly threw them into the river," I said, having had almost the same conversation with Lucas the previous morning. Andy walked in with the damp facecloth and handed it to Karen. She started dabbing my forehead with it. "Thanks."

Lucas entered the room with Lily, looking concerned.

"You okay, Nate? Another nightmare?" he asked me.

"Yep," I said. I felt pretty foolish, having their whole family sit around me after my nightmare, as though I was Jamie's age. "I'm fine, guys seriously. Thanks for worrying, but there's no need, okay?" I said, trying to get them to let me get up.

* * *

"So, Jamie, are you sure you want to go to school?" I asked him in the car on the way there.

"Yes momma, I'm sure."

_Great_, I thought. When I pulled up at the drop-off point, Jamie undid his seatbelt and gave me his usual kiss and then went to open the door.

"Jamie, wait," I said.

"What, momma?" he asked.

"I love you. And I'll be here to pick you up at the end of the day, so don't go getting in anyone else's car, no matter what they say. And you just be careful, okay sweetie?" I said. I need to make sure he'd be safe. I didn't care if I sounded crazy and overprotective, I just want to make sure he would be safe.

"Yes momma, I promise," he said, before giving me another kiss and getting out of the car. He then ran out and started speaking to some of his friends, as though he didn't have a care in the world.

As I drove home, worried, I wondered what I would do with myself for the rest of the day. I kept thinking about Jamie. It was a good thing that I had taken a few days off work, because I would not have been able to concentrate on teaching. I decided to go by Lucas's, so I could talk to Karen before she left. That way, I wouldn't be alone and letting all sorts of worried thoughts about Jamie swirl through my head all day.

As I turned into Lucas's street, I saw Nathan's car. It hadn't even occurred to me that he was there. I contemplated not going in after all, but suddenly realised I was being ridiculous. He was my husband. And... I would be talking to Karen anyway, not him. Nathan would understand, as I hadn't seen Karen in quite a long time.

I knocked on the door, nervous that Nathan would answer. To my selfish relief, Karen was the one who answered.

"Haley!" she said happily. "So glad you visited. Come on in."

I followed her into the living room, and we sat on the couch.

"So, you here to see Nathan, Lucas or me?" she asked jokingly.

"You, of course. I've missed you," I said. "It's been too long."

"Yep, it has. But hey, I'm here now. We are leaving tomorrow though."

"Tomorrow? It's been a short visit, then."

"Well, we thought Lucas and Lindsey would have been on their honeymoon so we were only planning on staying for the one night, so we just extended our trip by a couple of days to stay with Lucas," she told me.

"How's he doing? I've not really had a chance to catch up lately. I've just... I've been with Jamie pretty much the whole time," I admitted.

"That's understandable, Haley. After what you've been through, it's completely understandable. And Lucas... is actually not doing too bad. He's putting on a brave face, but we can all tell he's pining for Lindsey. He is being really brave about everything though, trying not to let it get him down, especially around Lily. He's doing a lot better than Nathan, though."

"What? What do you mean?" I asked, shocked. "What's wrong with Nathan?"

"Well, Haley, his son _was_ kidnapped two days ago, so it's pretty obvious he's not doing too good. I can tell that you're pretty nervous about having Jamie out of your sight and at school, and that's how Nathan's felt for the past two days when he's been without Jamie."

Karen made a lot of sense. I had never thought about it. The 5 minute drive over here had been horrible enough, being alone and without Jamie. I hadn't thought about how Nathan would be feeling with hours without him.

"Wow, you're right," I admitted. "So, what do you mean he's not doing good?" I asked curiously.

We were interrupted by Nathan coming into the room, looking at the back of a photograph, saying:

"Hey Karen, where's this picture from? It doesn't say on the ba-" and then he looked up and saw I was there. "Er, hey."

"Hey," I said back. Karen looked at me.

"Well, I think I'm gonna go see what Lily's doing," she said, obviously trying to leave the awkward situation. Either that or she wanted us to talk. Something told me it was maybe a bit of both.

"Hey. What are you doing here?" he asked me, still standing and fiddling with the photograph in his hands.

"Oh, I was just wanting to talk to Karen," I said, trying to avoid eye contact.

"Right. Well, I'll let you get back to it then," he said, turning around.

"Nathan..."

He turned back around, looking a bit more hopeful.

"You still coming around tonight? I think Jamie really wants to show you the tower he built this morning," I said, saying anything just to make the conversation, if you could call it that, a bit less awkward and dark.

"Yeah, of course I am. Around six, right?" he asked.

"Yep," I nodded. I was looking at him now. He looked so broken.

"See you then," he said, and then turned around and went back to the kitchen.

I sighed. Why did this have to be so hard?

Karen came back in the living room a little minute later.

"So, how's Lily?" I asked sarcastically.

"Oh she's good. How's Nathan?"

"Oh, um, not so good. But I don't want to talk about my problems. How's travelling the world going?"

* * *

It was 5:45pm. I was so anxious to get going, but the drive to the house took less than ten minutes. I didn't want to show up too early and interrupt dinner. Dinner that I should have been at.

I sat on the couch, staring at the clock. I decided I would leave at 5:50, so that I could get there at about exactly 6. I'm not sure if I thought that turning up on the dot would somehow really impress Haley, but hey. I needed something.

I rang the doorbell. Of my own house. Again. I hated doing that. I heard Jamie's little feet running to answer the door, making me smile. I loved that he was so happy to see me.

"Daddy!" he exclaimed as he opened the door, and held his arms out to me to be picked up.

"Hey champ!" I said, lifting him up. "How was school today?"

"It was great. I got every word right on the spelling test, and I didn't get caught AT ALL when we were playing tag and, at lunchtime, everyone was given a chocolate chip cookie since it was Madison's birthday!" he said really quickly, obviously very content with his day.

"That sounds awesome, man! So was it a good cookie then?"

"It was sooo yummy," he said, a big smile on his face.

At that moment, Haley walked into the entrance hall.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi," was my oh-so-original reply.

"Listen, Peyton and Brooke asked me if I wanted to come over and hang out and maybe watch a movie at their place, and I wasn't going to, but... I think I need to learn to be away from Jamie so I don't become too much of an overprotective parent," she said, obviously having taken on board what I said yesterday. "So is it cool if I leave you guys here while I go to their place for a couple hours?"

"Yeah, of course," I said. "Go, have fun," I smiled. I managed to get a weak smile in reply. At least it was something.

"Okay buddy," she said, walking over to me and speaking to Jamie who was still in my arms. "I'm going to go to Aunt Brooke & Aunt Peyton's house for a little while, so be good with daddy, okay?" She grabbed his head and kissed the top of it, accidentally grazing my chest with her hand in the meantime. I froze. I looked down at her, and she was looking up at me. She shook it off and said "Be good," with a genuine smile on her face before putting on her jacket. "I'll be back before bedtime." She opened the door, then turned around, and ran back to us and gave Jamie a big kiss. She looked up at me. "Bye," she whispered, before eventually leaving and closing the door behind her.

"So, I hear you've got a huge tower to show me, huh?" I said to Jamie.

"Yeah, it's in my room! Take me!" he said, so I took him up to his room to see a tower made of building blocks and random other objects on top of it, obviously making it as tall as possible.

"That is some tower," I said, impressed with my son's building skills. "So, what do you want to do tonight?"

"Hmm." I watched the concentration in his face, as though what we would spend the next two hours doing was in fact an extremely important decision. "I think we should watch a movie," he eventually said.

"Oh yeah? Well let's get downstairs and pick one then."

* * *

I had lasted an hour and half at Peyton and Brooke's house. But I couldn't stand to be away from Jamie any longer, so I left to go home. I felt that if being away from him was tough when he was at school, then I should make the most of my available time with him when he was home.

I opened the door to a silent house. I was pretty confused and horror gripped me for a second, making me think that something bad had happened, but I snapped out of it when I heard a faint snoring coming from the living room. I walked in to find Nathan and Jamie cuddled up on the couch, both sleeping, Jamie snoring happily away. I smiled at them. They looked so comfortable, so at peace. I decided to leave them to it. I would wake them in half an hour or so, so that Jamie would be able to get to sleep when it was his real bedtime. I went to the kitchen to make myself a cup of coffee and then sat at the breakfast bar, reading a magazine. It was good to have alone time, all the while having Jamie sleep peacefully only a few metres away from me with Nathan.

About ten minutes later, I got a fright from a shout from the couch. It was Nathan. Jamie woke up with a start. He got off the couch and was watching Nathan. I ran over to see Nathan squirming in his sleep, letting out cries of "No... no! NO!" Jamie looked scared, and I was too. I could see beads of sweat break out on Nathan's forehead. He looked like he was in pain or something. I shook him to wake him up.

"Nathan! Nathan, wake up!"

"Wha- what? No!" he said, out of breath. He then blinked and opened his eyes properly. He sat up, and he was out of breath.

"Daddy, what's wrong?" Jamie asked worriedly.

"Oh, er... nothing buddy, I'm fine. Must just be having nightmares from... the... movie we watched."

Jamie looked unconvinced. "From Shrek 2?"

I smiled. _Nice excuse, Nathan._ But I was still worried.

"Yeah..." Nathan said, trying to defend his excuse.

"Hey, Jamie, how about you go get your dad a damp facecloth from the linen closet, okay?" I said.

"Okay!" said Jamie, running off to the kitchen.

"Nathan, what's wrong?" I asked quietly.

"Nothing, it's nothing, I'm fine," he said.

"Come on. You're shaking, Nathan. I know you. What's up?" I persisted.

"It's nothing, it was just a bad dream," he said, trying to shake off any more questions. "It's no big deal, nightmares happen to everyone."

"Yeah, Nathan, but not everyone wakes up from them shouting and sweating and shaking."

"Look, I know you're probably mad at me for falling asleep - if Jamie had woken up he could have gone anywhere, and it would have been my fault -"

"Nathan, that is so not what this is about! What made you think I'm angry? Of course I'm not."

"Oh. Okay then..."

"I've actually been in for ten minutes, I left you guys sleeping. You looked cute."

Nathan smiled.

"We did, huh?"

"Here, momma," Jamie said while running through, handing me a damp facecloth.

"Thanks, buddy," I said. I began patting Nathan's face gently with the facecloth.

We locked eyes. I stopped dabbing his face for a second. My heart race picked up.

"Um... I better go and, um... finish what I was doing..." I said, pathetically. I handed Nathan the facecloth and walked into the kitchen, trying to busy myself by cleaning the sink, leaving Nathan sitting on the couch.

"So, buddy, it's nearly your bedtime. Want me to come help you get ready and then I can read you a story?" I heard Nathan say to Jamie.

"Yeah okay! Come on, daddy!" Jamie replied.

They went upstairs, and I stopped cleaning the sink. I sighed. Nathan did something to me. Just looking in his eyes made my heart flutter. I heard rain drops begin to hit the window, which got heavier and heavier in the next few moments. I found myself just standing at the kitchen sink for a few minutes, gazing out of the window at the rain. I was startled by a knock at the door. I went to go and answer it, and Lucas was standing there.

"Hey, Luke, you're soaking!" I said to him, ushering him in, out of the pouring rain.

"Yeah, well, I went for a walk but... yeah. It kind of started raining," he said, laughing.

"Okay, well you want a towel or something?" I asked him, walking through to the kitchen to get a towel from the linen closet.

"Yeah, that'd be good," he said. "I knew Nathan was here so I came so I could get a ride home."

"Oh, okay, so you're not here to see me then," I replied jokingly.

"Of course I want to see you, Hales. Especially... especially since I'm going on the boat with my mom, Lily and Andy tomorrow."

"What? For how long?"

"I'm not sure, but I want to spend more time with them, they're my family, and... I just need to get away from here for a while. I hate trying to avoid driving past the church, and sleeping in our bed alone," he said, looking down.

"Yeah, I understand Luke. Just don't be gone for too long, I'll miss you! So, um... will Nathan..."

"Yes, Hales, Nathan can still stay at my place," he replied, knowing me too well. "Unless, of course, you don't want him to?"

"No, I do," I said firmly.

"Okay, Hales, it's cool."

"Lucas... I'm kind of worried about him. Him and Jamie fell asleep on the couch and he woke up shouting and shivering from a nightmare, but he wouldn't tell me what was going on," I told him quietly, scared Nathan might come back downstairs and hear me telling Luke.

"What, again?" Lucas said.

"What do you mean, again?" I asked curiously.

"Well, for the last two mornings he's woken up on the floor, shouting, sweating and shaking," he said.

"Really? Oh my God," I replied, anxiously.

"Yep. He was having nightmares about you and Jamie getting kidnapped by Carrie, Hales."

"What?" I asked, shocked.

"Yep. He didn't really like talking about it, but he just said that they were really vivid and he woke up out of breath and shouting, because he couldn't manage to save you guys from being thrown in a river."

"Wow... that's really bad. So, every time he's slept since Saturday he's had this nightmare..."

"Sounds like it," Lucas replied.

"Well... I've kind of been having bad dreams too. I haven't been able to remember what happened in them, but I just know that I wake up with a jolt and kind of scared, and I always feel so relieved to have Jamie sleeping next to me," I admitted. "Last night I actually woke up three times with that happening. But it hasn't been anywhere as bad as Nathan's reaction."

"Hmm. Hales, maybe you guys should... I don't know, talk to someone about this? Like, a sleep therapist, or someone who can help you try and get over what happened to Jamie?" Lucas suggested.

"Yeah, maybe," I said, when I heard Nathan's footsteps coming down the stairs.

"Hey man, what you doing here?" Nathan asked Lucas.

"Hey, well I was taking a walk and it started raining, so I thought I could maybe hitch a ride back?"

"Sure, man. We can go now. Haley, Jamie's sound asleep now. So, he's sleeping in our... your... bed now?" he said, struggling with trying to find the right word.

"Yep," I replied. "He doesn't want to sleep alone, and well... neither do I."

"Right."

"So, we going now or what?" Lucas said, trying to break the slight tension that had just been created.

"Yeah, let's go," Nathan said. "See you tomorrow?" he asked, looking at me.

"Yeah, see you," I said.

"Bye, Hales," Lucas said, giving me a hug. "I'll call you soon."

"Yeah you better, I'll miss you!" I said, hugging him back. As I hugged Lucas, I saw Nathan standing by the door, watching us. I could tell how much he longed for me to say I missed him too.

Then they left.

* * *

The next morning, after having woken up in the new usual way, I waved Lucas, Karen, Andy and Lily goodbye as I dropped them off at the dock. I stayed sitting on a bench for a little while, just staring at the sea and waving to them as they sailed away. Skills had told me that I didn't have to worry about going to school to coach the Ravens for as long as I wanted. I took him up on the offer, but I wasn't sure why. I had nothing else to do. After sitting at the dock for nearly twenty minutes, my phone rang. It was Haley. I couldn't help but smile at the picture that came up when she called - it was of her and Jamie.

"Hey," I said as I answered it.

"Hey," she replied. "So... about last night, your nightmare..."

"Haley, it's no big deal," I lied.

"Yes it is, Nathan. Look, don't be mad at Lucas but he told me that you'd been having them for the last few days."

I sighed, but I didn't care too much.

"Listen, Haley, it's okay. I'm okay," I said, quite touched that she cared.

"Well he also told me what you said they were about. And the last couple of nights I haven't been sleeping too great either," she said.

"What? Really? Are you okay?" I said, worried that she'd been experiencing the same pain that I had every night.

"I'm fine, it's been no where near as bad as yours, I've just found myself waking up a bit panicky and thankful to have Jamie beside me."

There was silence for a moment.

"So," she continued, "I was thinking that maybe we could talk to someone about it. Together. A therapist."

"A therapist?" I asked unsurely.

"Yeah, someone who could help us try and come to terms with what happened to Jamie, and maybe start to get over it. We can't be sleeping like this forever," she said.

Right, I thought. We can't be sleeping in different houses.

"True," I said.

"And... they might be able to help us, too," she said.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I don't know, but maybe talking about stuff could... help us."

I knew what she was meaning to say, and so I didn't want to push it.

"Well, okay then," I said. "Who?"

"Well, Lindsey gave me the number of the woman that helped her and her mom after her dad died," she said. "Apparently she's really great. So are you in, then?"

"Yeah, sure," I said.

"Okay, I'll make the appointment and tell you tonight when it is. Just come around same time as last night?"

"Yeah, sounds good. See you then," I said.

"Bye," she said, before hanging up.

I sighed. Therapy reminded me of that horrible day when I was a junior, when mom and dad tried therapy and brought me along, trying to force me to choose between them.

But then I realised that Haley was actually making an effort to help us get back on track, even it was just to help us sleep better. I was actually really glad. This was a hell of a lot better than her handing me divorce papers.

* * *

That night, after I had spent a few hours with Jamie, I was about to leave when Haley called for me to stay.

"Nathan, hang on a minute," she said, coming out of the kitchen to the entrance hall. "Here," she handed me an address. "It's the counsellor's office. I made an appointment for 3 on Saturday, is that cool? It was either that or 11, and I know you have Saturday practice."

I smiled at her for thinking about me. "Yeah, Haley, it's fine. And I've actually not been at practice this week, Skills said I could have a little bit of time off, but to be honest I want to go back. I think I'm going to go in tomorrow."

"Oh, well you should then," she said, looking up at me.

"Yeah. Well, I'm going to head back to Lucas's, I'll see you tomorrow," I said, before leaving the house. I hated leaving.

* * *

The next few days were pretty much the same as the previous ones. I woke up in the same way, except now I was completely alone in the house. I didn't even have Lucas there. I tried to busy myself until 3.30 when I went to practice. It wasn't very eventful, but it kind of helped keep my mind off Jamie and Haley for an hour or so each day. Skills didn't speak to me very much about anything other than basketball, which was weird. But I had enough on my plate to worry about Skills, however selfish that may seem. Haley and Jamie were the only thing that mattered.

I went to the house every night to play with Jamie until bedtime, without any alone-time with Haley, and left to come back to Lucas's empty house. The feeling that knowing I would be at the house later that day to see Jamie and Haley was pretty much all that kept me going through the days.

* * *

I woke up on Saturday morning by the alarm. Last night's sleep hadn't actually been too bad, until Jamie started tossing and turning all the time and hogging all the blankets. I got up and realised that I hadn't decided what I was going to do with Jamie when we were at therapy this afternoon. I could leave him with Brooke or Skills... but something inside me made me not want to leave him with anyone that wasn't me, Nathan or inside the school gates.

By the time the afternoon came, I decided that I would have to take Jamie with us to therapy. I didn't want him in the room where Nathan and I would be speaking to the woman, but I knew that I only felt right about having him in the same building with us. I didn't know what they would do with him, but they would have to find someone to look after him at reception or something.

When Jamie and I were in the car on the way to the counsellor, Jamie asked me a question.

"Where are we going, momma?"

"We're going to go speak to a lady who might help me and daddy be able to sleep better at night," I said.

"Huh. So why am I coming?"

"Because, smartie-pants, I'm not going to leave you in the house on your own, am I?"

"But what about Uncle Skills? Or Aunt Brooke? You've left me with them before when you and daddy went out," he said innocently.

"Yeah I know Jamie, but I think it would just be best if you came today. Don't worry, I'm sure you'll find something fun to do!" I said, actually pretty unsure whether or not there would be anything to keep Jamie amused at a therapy reception. As we drew up beside the building, I saw Nathan's car already parked there.

We walked inside, and saw Nathan sitting on a chair in the waiting area.

"Daddy!" Jamie yelled and ran and jumped onto his lap.

"I'm sorry, do I know you?" Nathan said mockingly.

"It's me daddy, James Lucas Scott!"

"Oh, yeah, you're that little kid that always hangs around me, right?"

"You're not funny, daddy," Jamie said, not amused but still smiling.

Nathan looked up at me. "So, what do we do with Jamie?"

"Um, I don't know, I was kind of hoping we could leave him with the receptionist or something." I looked across at the receptionist, and she looked warm and friendly. "I just didn't really feel comfortable leaving him with someone else," I told him.

"No, I understand, I'm the same actually. I was wondering where he'd be," Nathan replied.

The receptionist was happy to take Jamie for the duration of the session, and so Nathan and I walked slowly upstairs, not sure what to expect. The woman was waiting for us at her door. She had red hair and was quite tall and slim.

"Hello, you two must be Nathan and Haley," she said. She spoke with a British accent.

"Yep," said Nathan.

"Well come on in here," she said, ushering us into her room, where there was a couch. Nathan sat down on it first, and I sat down at the opposite end. We weren't very far away from eachother, but still a lot further than was usually comfortable for us. But I didn't want to move closer.

Nathan was darting his eyes all over the room and was shifting in his seat, looking very uncomfortable. The therapist came and sat down in a chair opposite us after closing the door and obviously noticed it too.

"Are you alright, Nathan?" she asked.

"Yeah, fine."

Typical Nathan, I thought. Pretending he's fine when he's not.

"Really? Well, I'm going to make a rule. Neither of you is allowed to use the word 'fine' in reply to my questions, okay?" she said with a smile. "My name is Miranda, by the way. Right, so, I'll ask you again, Nathan. Are you alright? You seem awfully uncomfortable."

"Well..." he looked at me, and then Miranda.

"Yes?" she persisted.

"It's just, being in here reminds me of a counselling session I went to with my parents when I was sixteen, and... it just didn't turn out so good," he said.

I felt so stupid. How could I forget about that? I should have thought about that before asking Nathan to come here and remember about his parents' awful treatment of him when I first got to know him.

"I'm sorry, Nathan," I said. "I never thought..."

"Haley, don't be sorry, it's not your fault," he said, preventing me from going any further. "Don't think that."

"So, Nathan, tell me about that counselling session, with your parents," the therapist said.

Nathan looked uncomfortable, like he really did not want to re-live that moment.

"Well, my mom had kicked my dad out of the house and it was pretty clear things weren't going to get better, but my mom suggested therapy. He wasn't too happy about it, but they went and brought me along for the first session. My mom and dad kept trying to put me in the middle and choose between them and it was horrible. And, when the therapist asked me if I still wanted to play basketball, I said I didn't know and my dad got mad at me. It was just... it wasn't a good day," he said, looking at the floor. I remembered him telling me about the awful time he was having with his parents when we first started dating.

"I see, so your parents are divorced, then," she said.

"Yeah."

"Right, and I understand the pair of you are in different houses at the moment, is that correct?" she asked us.

It was such a horrible question.

"Yes," I replied.

"Well, I want to get to know your personalities a bit better, and talk to you about that later on, but before I do, I want to know about the day your son went missing. Haley, tell me about it."

"Well, it was my best friend's wedding, but it didn't turn out so good - his fiance left him at the alter. Anyway, everyone was just kind of hanging around outside the church for a few minutes and our friend Skills, who was watching Jamie at the ceremony, told me he had gone to the bathroom more than five minutes ago and hadn't come back. He had checked the bathrooms and he wasn't there. I got really worried and started asking everyone there if they had seen them and none of them had, but a lot of my friends went to look for him around the back and asked people if they'd seen him. Nobody had, and so..." I glanced at Nathan. "I thought that it was possibly Nathan's father who had taken him, because I had seen him in his car outside the church that day."

"Why did you think it would have been Nathan's father that had abducted him?" she asked.

"Because my father is a murderer," Nathan said, looking down at his hands, that were fiddling with his wedding ring, on his lap.

"Oh, I see," she said. "That wouldn't happen to be Dan Scott, would it?"

"Yes, yes it is," I replied. "Anyway, he had been at the church that day so I thought it might have been him who had taken Jamie. So Nathan stopped a police car and told them about the situation, and they asked us for a description of him. It was horrible, it made the situation so much more real."

"And then what happened?" she asked.

"Well," I continued, "Our friends came back to our house after the wedding, and everyone was just talking about Jamie and I couldn't handle it, so I just went up to Jamie's room."

"Did you feel that being in his room would make you feel closer to him?"

"I'm not sure, but I was just so devastated at the fact that he was gone, and I needed to get away from all the conversation about it downstairs, so I just ended up in his bedroom. Nathan did ask me to come downstairs, but I just stayed up there. I started... blaming myself for not letting Nathan come home because he could have been protecting Jamie."

"Did you really feel that way?" she asked.

"Well I just needed somebody to blame, and the person I found easiest to blame was myself," I admitted.

"Haley, come on, it was in no way your fault," Nathan interrupted. I looked at him.

"I know that now, but..." I looked down. "I don't know."

"Haley, listen to me. It was in _no_ way your fault. Not at all, okay? If it was anybody's fault, it was mine," he said, surprising me.

"What?"

"Well Haley, it's kind of obvious, isn't it? If I had fired Carrie before all of it, if I had of just put a stop to it before it got out of hand..."

"Carrie?" interrupted the therapist.

"Yeah, she was our nanny," I told her. "And then... she started flirting with Nathan, and then she kissed him and got in the shower with him and swam naked for him... and she was the one who kidnapped Jamie," I said, tears beginning to well up in my eyes at the memories being brought back of hearing of all the stuff she had done to try to destroy our family. I heard Nathan sigh.

"Ah, I see. Hense the living arrangements. Well, I really want to talk to the two of you about that, but first of all I want to help you with Jamie's abduction. Nathan, how did you feel that day?" the therapist asked.

"It was one of the worst feelings I have ever experienced. I was devastated at the fact my son was gone, and I felt guilty because I thought it was my father who had taken him. I also felt guilty because I was making Haley doubt herself, and that I couldn't really comfort her," he said.

"I see. Now, Nathan, how have you been since last, Saturday was it?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, so I understand you've had trouble sleeping?" she asked him.

"Well, for the past few weeks it's been taking me a while to eventually get to sleep, yeah, but that's mostly because... well just because I hate sleeping on my own."

I looked at him.

"Anyway, the bigger problem this week has been... from nightmares," he said, looking kind of embarrassed.

"And what happened in those nightmares, Nathan?"

He sighed, obviously not wanting to explain it all again. "They're pretty much all the same. Carrie has Jamie and Haley all tied up and is running away with them, and as fast as I run I can't catch up to save them." He sighed. "Then, I turn a corner, and she's taking them onto this boat in the river and picks them up and is about to throw them over the edge, and that's when I wake up."

"How do you feel when you've woken up, Nathan? Scared? Relieved it was a dream?" she asked.

"Well... confused, at first."

I decided to chime in. "Yeah, when he fell asleep on the couch one night when he was with Jamie this week he woke up shouting, shaking and sweating, and seemed pretty confused when he woke up," I told her. Nathan looked embarrassed, but I knew I had to tell her, so she could help him. I avoided his gaze.

"Ah, I see. Well Nathan, do something for me. From now on, before you go to bed, I want you to picture Jamie sleeping. It doesn't matter where he is - he could be in his bed, in Haley's bed, with you, or even in his crib as a baby. Just picture him, safe and sleeping. I want only this image in your head, and any other image that comes to mind I want you to block it out. Be happy that he is sleeping safe and sound. Be at peace before you try to go to sleep. If that doesn't work, we will work something out next week, if that's alright?" the therapist said.

"Okay, sure," Nathan said without much certainty.

"And Haley, how have you been sleeping since last week?" she asked, looking at me now.

"Um, not too bad actually, although I have sometimes found myself waking up in the middle of the night or the morning with a jolt, and feeling so glad that Jamie's lying there beside me," I said. "I can never remember what the dream is about though, and it's only happened this week, since Jamie's abduction."

"I see, so Jamie's sleeping in your bed with you then?" she asked.

"Yeah, he is. It comforts him, and, to be honest, it comforts me too."

"Okay, well I want you to do pretty much the same as I asked Nathan to do, Haley. Just look at Jamie sleeping beside you and be aware that he's safe, and be happy about it. Can you do that?"

"Yes, I think I can."

"Good. Now, there's one other thing I want you pair to do before we discuss the two of you any further," she said. Nathan and I just kept looking at her, waiting for her to tell us. "I want you to stop blaming yourselves. You say that if it wasn't for something you'd done, then this Carrie person wouldn't have taken Jamie. I want you to stop thinking like that. What the two of you did, or didn't do beforehand, is just life. But Carrie chose to take Jamie away. Neither of you made it happen. It's her fault, and it's her to blame, and no one else. Okay?"

"Okay," Nathan and I said at the same time.

"Right, now tell me about your relationship, from the beginning," she asked.

The next twenty minutes were filled with me telling her about the fact we had married in high school, separated because of the tour, gotten back together, renewed our vows, had a baby, went through college and dealt with my father's death, gone through Nathan's accident, and by the time I had got to Carrie, time was almost up. Nathan had hardly taken part in telling the counsellor about us. I think it was mostly to do with the fact he felt really uncomfortable talking in a room like this, due to the memories of his mom and dad.

"Well, I didn't think that would have taken that long," Miranda said with a smile. "A six-year marriage doesn't usually have so much drama within that time!"

Nathan and I looked at her nervously.

"But," she added, "I doubt most couples would have made it through so much drama to where the two of you are now. Half of them wouldn't have even made it through what you went through just in high school. You two really are unique, and I can already see in the two of you that you are going to go the distance. You may be having troubles right now, but you two are going to be okay. Hearing what you two have done for eachother is enough for me to know that." She smiled. "Right... would you like to schedule another appointment for next week?"

"Um..." I was still quite startled at her speech about us. "Yeah, that would be good," I said, looking at Nathan for approval.

"Yeah," he nodded. I could tell he was trying to hide a smile from what the therapist had just said.

"Okay, how about same time next Saturday?" she asked.

"Sounds good," I said, taking the appointment card she'd just scribbled down from her.

"Right, since it's the end of the session, Nathan - tell me something you love about Haley."

Nathan looked startled at her command, but then he smiled. "Only one?"

I felt myself blush, and I smiled.

"Yes, any one thing," she said.

"I love, that even though I've made so many mistakes, she's been able to see me for myself, for so many years, and still not give up on me," he said, looking at the therapist and then at me.

"Now, Haley, tell me something you love about Nathan."

"Um... I love that he's such an amazing father to Jamie. When I was pregnant I knew he was scared at the prospect of being a dad, but he truly has been amazing at it. And he still is," I said, looking at him while I spoke.

As soon as I'd said that, a beeping noise sounded, indicating the end of the session.

"Ah, well. That's time up until next week. See you then!" she said.

As Nathan and I walked through the corridor to the reception, neither of us said a word. I'm pretty sure we just didn't know what to say in our current situation, having just being told what a unique couple we are.

"Momma, daddy!" Jamie called from the reception, and ran over to us. I picked him up.

"Hey, Jimjam!" I said. You have fun?

"It was okay, but playing with the hole-puncher got a bit boring after a while," he said, making Nathan and I both chuckle. "So, we going home now?"

"Yes, yes we are." I set him down, and took his hand so we could walk out. Nathan came too, but as we left the building we went our separate ways to our own cars.

"Um, Haley," he said. "Will I come by tonight?"

"Yeah, sounds good. You know what, Brooke is wanting to drag me and Peyton out tonight, and I know both Peyton and I won't really be in the mood for dancing and partying, but I said I'd go, at least for a little while, so if you could stay until around 12, that would be good?" I asked him.

"Yeah, sure. See you at six?"

"Yep, see you," I said, before taking Jamie to the car.

* * *

**Thanks for reading! Review review review! =)**


	3. Goodnight & Go

**A/N: **Hey guys! I can't tell you how good it feels to see that people are reviewing/favouriting/getting alerts for my story, especially since it's my first ever fic, so please continue to do so. I'm glad you're enjoying it - I like being able to fill that 4-week gap with something that is hopefully realistic in terms of the show.

I know I've been updating daily so far, but it won't always be that way. I'm only one chapter ahead writing-wise (but don't worry, with all of the reviews etc it inspires me to write more!) I will definitely update regularly, probably every 2 or 3 days depending on how I feel about the story, might be less than that sometimes, might a bit longer. I keep coming up with ideas in the most random places - was watching a film in German at school today and had no idea what was going on in it so I just completely zoned out and started thinking of ideas for the next few chapters! Ha. I've already thought of a bunch of stuff for later on in the story as well.

You'll notice that this chapter is all from Nathan's perspective. I didn't do that deliberately, but I had the whole story written up in one document and it's just the way I split up the chapters - I just wanted to be able to get the first therapy session published in Chapter 2. This chapter is quite short, which kind of has to do with the fact the second chapter was so long. Chapter 4 will be a lot longer and mostly from Haley's perspective, which should hopefully balance this one out. In response to some reviews, there will be plenty of Naley interaction in the missing four weeks bit, and I will include all four therapy sessions. And, like I told you before the first chapter, I will continue beyond that with extras from season 5 and 6 and maybe even further if I decide to go on and if my readers remain interested!

Woah, that was a long author's note.

So, as I always say... **REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW!**

* * *

That night, I went by the house at around six, and Haley answered the door wearing her dressing gown.

"Oh, hey," she said, trying to pull her short dressing gown a little further down her legs. It seemed ridiculous... I knew every single part of her body better than anyone else in the world, yet she still felt the need to hide it from me.

"Hey."

"Sorry, I'm just about to go for a shower before I head out... Jamie's in the living room," she said, looking embarrassed that she'd opened the door in her dressing gown.

"Okay, thanks," I said, walking past her as she waited at the door to close it once I'd entered. She looked amazing, as always.

I went into the living room where I found Jamie with a box of his toys, pushing around toy cars.

"Hey, buddy!"

"Daddy!" he exclaimed excitedly. It made me so happy to know that he was so excited to see me. It gave me hope, especially since everytime Haley saw me she never looked as thrilled as that.

For the next half hour Jamie and I were just playing in the living room while Haley got ready upstairs.

"Look, daddy, I put the cars in the order of their colour!"

"Wow, nice work Jame."

"Thanks, but I want another green one, I left some upstairs, wanna come with me so we can get it? Daddy?"

I was about to reply when I saw Haley come in the room. She looked breathtaking. She was wearing the black and gold dress Brooke had given her at the Clothes Over Bros opening, with black stilettos and had her hair up in a casual, but sexy, bun. She looked so damn hot. I felt myself grow hard.

"Daddy?"

"Oh, um, yeah. We can get it in a sec, bud," I said, still unable to take my eyes off Haley. She looked up and caught me staring at her, so I looked away, and sat up on the couch off of the floor where I was playing with Jamie just to do something with myself.

"Okay, so Peyton and Brooke are coming by in a cab to pick me up in a minute," she said, walking over to where we were. "I'm gonna try and be back for about 12, by which time you, mister, will be sound asleep," she said, pointing at Jamie. "That cool for you to stay until I get home?" she asked, looking at me.

"Yeah, sure."

"Okay, great." She walked over in the direction of the couch and leaned over me and was doing something with her purse on the table next to the couch. I was so close to her. She smelled so good, and her breasts were so close to me, so perfect. I had to look away, because I was using every ounce of self-restraint that I had not to touch her, to kiss her. I felt myself growing even harder, which wasn't helped by her hand accidentally brushing my leg as she stood up properly.

A car horn sounded outside.

"That must be my cab," she said. "You be good, Jamie, okay?"

"Yes, momma."

"Okay, I love you so much," she said, kissing him. "Bye, sweetie!"

"Bye momma."

She looked at me. Gorgeous as ever. "See you later."

"Yeah, see you."

And then she left out the door. I was still painfully hard.

"Jamie, I gotta go to the bathroom."

* * *

After I had... _relieved _myself in the bathroom, I fetched Jamie's toy from his bedroom and made my way back downstairs.

"You brought the car! Sweet! Now it all matches," he said, taking the green toy car from me. I sat down next to him again. God, I missed being able to do this whenever I wanted, not just at certain times of the day. But still, at least I was still seeing him. I had to be thankful for that. And I had another 5 hours with him that night... but it was also 5 hours where Haley wasn't in the house. It was just so damn hard.

I knew it was my own fault. If I had just told Haley right away about Carrie's flirting, or if I'd just told Carrie to stop it right away, or if I hadn't told Jamie to go outside the night Haley and me had been arguing. In fact, if I hadn't been such a dick after my accident... Haley kept trying to help me, but I kept shutting her out, too depressed at the fact I wouldn't play basketball again that I stopped talking to her properly and started drinking more often and made no effort with physical therapy even when she tried to arrange extra sessions because she knew it would help me.

Or if I went even further back than that. If I hadn't been such a tool with that guy in that bar the night I got my shoe contract deal, and I wouldn't have been thrown through that damn window in the first place. Every fucking thing was my fault. So maybe I deserved this pain, this distance from my family, because I had enflicted so much pain on them after my accident, and now it was because of me being so stupid with what I did about Carrie. I'd actually tried to tell Haley about Carrie, but the bitch overheard me and covered it up by saying she was quitting. And then she had kidnapped Jamie... it didn't bear thinking about what could have happened if my dad hadn't saved him. But I didn't want to be thankful to my father.

"Daddy? Are you okay?" Jamie asked me. He looked up at me with worry in his eyes. His beautiful, innocent little eyes.

"Yeah, Jamie, I'm fine," I lied.

"You look sad."

I didn't say anything.

"You are sad, huh daddy?"

I didn't want to lie to him, especially when he was looking at me like that. I pulled him over onto my lap.

"Yeah, Jamie, I kind of am."

"Me too."

"What? Why are you sad Jamie?"

"Because I miss you," he said, snuggling into my chest. "Is your time-out over yet?"

"No, Jamie, I'm afraid not. But I miss you too. And your mom. So much. That's why I'm sad."

"Well why don't you just come home? Mommy misses you too."

I looked down into his blue eyes.

"She does?"

"I think so. Most nights when she comes to bed when she thinks I'm sleeping, she cries for a little bit. It makes me sad."

My eyes welled up, and it took me quite a bit of strength to stop tears from falling. I hugged Jamie even tighter.

"I'm sorry buddy, I don't want you to be sad. Mommy doesn't want that either. Listen, Jamie, you have to promise me something. If you ever see your mom looking sad or crying, I want you to give her a big hug and tell her you love her, okay?"

"Okay daddy, I promise."

"Thank you."

"Daddy..."

"Yeah?"

"A few weeks ago, when momma told nanny Carrie to get out of the house and she kept shouting at you..." he trailed off, looking sheepish.

"Jamie, tell me."

"I told momma I hated her."

"Jamie!"

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it!"

I couldn't believe it. I didn't want Haley under any more stress than she needed to be.

"What... Why did you tell her that?"

"I don't know. I said sorry later, and that I didn't mean it."

"That's good, Jamie. I never want you to say that again, you hear me? Ever. Your mom doesn't deserve to be hated by anyone. She is the best mom, wife, friend... person in the world. You hear me?"

"I hear ya. I know she is... you and her both are," he said with a smile, hugging me even tighter. It felt so nice to hear him say that, even if it was obviously far from the truth.

I chuckled. "Thanks Jamie, although it's actually not mommy and me, but your mommy and you."

That made his smile widen. He stood up, walked over to the DVD cabinet, and pulled out Shrek.

"Can we watch this daddy?"

"Sure we can," I said, getting up and putting the disc into the DVD player. "Want some popcorn?"

"Yeah!"

"Okay, I'll go make some."

After I'd got the popcorn ready and brought through two glasses of water, we settled down to the film. Last week when we did this we just sat normally on the couch, but this time he sat on my lap, snuggling up to me.

When the film finished, I noticed Jamie's eyes starting to droop.

"You tired, Jame?"

"No..."

"All right, cool, so I guess you're awake enough to do some extra schoolwork then?" I teased.

"Hmm. Alright. I am tired."

I carried him upstairs, and then waited for him to get ready for bed. I read him a story and after he dozed off, I went back downstairs to clear up the toys and popcorn bowls we'd left in the living room. After I'd done that, I didn't really know what to do... I wasn't sure if Haley would appreciate it if I just kicked back and watched the TV as if I was still staying there, so I went back upstairs and just watched Jamie sleep. He looked so peaceful and I just wanted to lie there next to him, but I knew I shouldn't. Not only because Haley wouldn't be impressed with me sleeping in our bed, but because I didn't want Jamie to hear me having another nightmare. The therapist's suggestion wasn't helping with the nightmares at all.

Before I knew it, three hours had passed and I heard a car draw up outside. I figured it would be Haley's cab.

I went downstairs, ready to get my shoes on. As much as it pained me to leave, I didn't want to spend a minute more than I had to getting ready to leave in front of Haley. It just felt too weird.

I was just knotting up my second lace when I heard the door handle. It seemed to take her a couple of tries to get it open before she eventually walked in. I went through to the entrance hall and I could tell just by looking at her that she was kind of drunk. She wasn't hammered or anything, but just a bit tipsy.

"Hey," I said.

"Hi," she said, trying to act sober.

"Hales." I looked at her. "Are you drunk?"

"No!" She gave me a stern glare, before succumbing to a small chuckle. "A little. Brooke was trying to cheer me and Peyton up."

"I see."

"Yeah, so, thanks for staying so late... I should probably get to bed now. How was he?" she asked while making her way for the stairs.

"He was good, as always," I said with a smile. She stumbled on the first step. I laughed.

"Are you laughing at me?"

"No, Hales, of course not. But maybe you should just take off those heels."

"Hmm. Good idea." She sat down on the first step and started fiddling with the straps on her shoes. I watched her as she struggled to get them off. "Damn it," she muttered.

"Need help?"

"No," she said, still fumbling with the strap.

"You sure?"

She looked up at me. "No," she said with a soft smile.

I walked over to her and crouched down, undoing the straps on her shoe before easing the first one off her foot.

"Ohh, that feels so good," she said, shaking her foot, before holding up her other one for me to get the shoe off. She looked at me. "This kinda reminds me of when we got back from senior prom... I was pregnant and I couldn't take off my shoes when we got home," she said with a smile.

"And I broke the strap on one of them and you got mad and threw it across our bedroom," I said, amused at the memory. I would have gone further, but the rest of the story involved Haley and I making love on our bed in my old room, which I felt might be kind of awkward to bring up. I could tell she was remembering that part too when I looked up and saw her looking at me intently. She then looked down at her foot. I eased the shoe off. "There you go."

"Thank you."

I stood up, and she held her hands out to me to help her stand up. For a second we stood there, holding hands, looking at one another.

"I, uh, should probably get ready for bed now," she said, letting go of my hands and turning to go up the stairs.

"You sure you'll be okay?"

"Yeah," she said, without turning around as she walked up the stairs. I decided to wait a second just incase. She wasn't that drunk, but I wanted to make sure she had everything she needed before going to bed. I'd dealt with drunk Haley before, and she often didn't have her brain as fully switched on as it usually was.

A minute later, I heard her.

"Nathan? You still here?" she whispered from the top of the stairs.

"Yeah," I said, amused.

"Can you help me reach the make-up wipes? They're on the top shelf."

"Sure," I said, making my way up the stairs, following her into our bedroom, past Jamie who was sleeping, and into our en suite bathroom where the light was on. I saw her wipes and reached effortlessly to get them, and passed them to her.

"Thanks. Sorry, I feel stupid getting you to come up here to do that..."

"Don't, Haley. I'm your husband, don't feel stupid about getting me to do anything."

She looked away and nodded, and began using one of the wipes on her face, cleaning away all that make up to leave her still beautiful as ever face. As much as I just wanted to stay and watch her, I knew I should probably leave.

"Right, well, I guess I'd... better get going."

She caught my eyes in the mirror, and for a moment we just looked at eachother like that. Then she suddenly turned and walked over to me, wrapping her arms around my neck and embracing me in a hug,. I hugged her right back, stroking her hair that was now tumbling above her shoulders. It felt so good to have her in my arms.

"Thank you," she said, while her head was nuzzled into my chest.

"For what?"

"Just... thank you." She then pulled away from the hug, gave me a quick look and went back to getting ready for bed.

"See you, Hales."

"Mmm."

And with that I turned, and left. Left my wife, my son, my bedroom, my house. And it was all my fault. All I could do was hope. Hope that Haley would be able to trust me again, and let me come back to where I belonged.

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**Thank you so much for reading! Reviews are the best, no joke. If you'd like this story to be updated as regularly as possible, nothing motivates me more than to know that people are enjoying it! :]**


	4. Worn Me Down

**A/N: **Thank you so much for the reviews/subscriptions yet again, it really does make me happy to know that, even though it's my first fic, people are enjoying Always Love! (Title taken from awesome song by Nada Surf btw, played in an awesome NH moment in 3x03! Other chapter names are from songs too (in true OTH fashion) by The Honorary Title, South and Imogen Heap, this chapter name by Rachael Yamagata.) Just remember that this is not AU, so it's going to take them 4 weeks to get to where we saw them in 5x13... it's only been one week so far. There will be plenty of NH interaction though, so don't worry!

This chapter is like, 80% flashback. It kinda fills in some of the gaps from when Nathan's injury occurred, which I feel is important to this story because they were only just recovering from that when freaking Carrie got her stupid claws in. Plus, it's good to fill in some blanks of important scenes we never got to see I think. I know you'd probably rather see what is going on within the four weeks rather than the flashbacks, but this is the only chapter that will be mostly flashback. There will be other flashbacks in the story, but not this long. Flashbacks are in italics. This chapter is all from Haley's perspective but it will be more balanced in the next chapters.

Continue to review please, it makes me happy! =)

P.S. I know NOTHING about medicine or back injuries or anything like that at all, so if you do and you find that what I'm writing is completely wrong... I'm sorry! =)

* * *

I woke up on Sunday with Jamie kicking me in the side. He tossed around so much when he slept, which meant a lot of restless nights for me as well. It had taken a while for me to get to sleep last night anyway. All I'd been able to think about was Nathan.

I loved him so much. But after not only the whole Carrie thing, but also the fact we had not yet fully recovered from Nathan's depression, I wasn't ready to let him back home. Things took time. I just lay back on my bed and thought about the night I found out about Nathan's back injury - the night that started all of this.

_I was driving to our new house to relieve the sitter of her duties. She had been my lecturer for the Education part of my major, and was a lovely lady called Laura, in her 50s who was keen to help out whenever we needed. She knew Nathan & I had to juggle college with Jamie, so even when college was over she told us to let her know if we ever needed someone to watch him. _

_That day Nathan's shoe contract deal became official and was the day before he was to be the tenth pick in the draft for the Seattle Sonics. It had been an amazing day - everything was perfect. We had our new house in Tree Hill and then we had gone out, with Lucas, to celebrate Nathan's shoe deal._

_I was just pulling up into the driveway when my mobile started ringing, and when I looked at the caller ID I saw that it was Lucas._

_"Hey, what's up?"_

_"Haley..." he sounded extremely shaken and worried. "It's Nathan..."_

_Fear gripped me. "Wh- what? What about him, Lucas?"_

_"Oh God, Haley, I..."_

_"Lucas! Tell me!"_

_I then heard sirens in the background on his end of the phone. I felt my heart drop._

_"Lucas!" I could hear my voice quaking with fear. "What the hell is going on?"_

_"Haley, go to the hospital. Nathan's been in a... an accident. He's conscious and everything, but - okay the ambulance is here. Get there right away, Haley."_

_When he uttered the words "He's conscious" I felt a slight relief come over me. But Lucas sounded so worried._

_"What the hell does he need to go in an ambulance for then? What happened? What was the accident? You didn't drive did you?"_

_"No, Hales, we didn't. Look, I will talk to you at the hospital, get there as soon as you can."_

_And then he hung up. I froze for a second, unable to move. Why the hell wouldn't Lucas tell me what was going on? _

_I opened the door of the car and went inside the house to ask Laura if she could stay a bit longer._

_"Sure, sweetie. What's up? You're extremely pale."_

_"Nathan's at the hospital, and... I have to go."_

_"What? What happened?"_

_"I don't know," I said, eager to leave. "Look, I'm sorry but I have to go see my husband. Thank you so much for staying."_

_As I went back outside to the car, I actually felt like I was going to faint. I grabbed onto the car door to hold myself up. I had to shake away that feeling. I had to drive to my husband. _

_He was in an ambulance. Ambulances were only used for emergencies! What the hell had happened? He was still conscious, but he'd been in an accident that required him to go to the hospital. A broken leg, maybe? God, it didn't bear thinking about. He was just about to start in the NBA, and a broken leg would have him out for a good couple of months. _

_My head was spinning as I drove to the hospital. I was slightly over the speed limit, but I didn't care. I had to know what was going on. I HAD to see Nathan._

_I parked in the first spot I saw, which meant I had to walk for a little minute before I got to the main doors. I ran as fast as I could, but I was still wearing the heels I had on while out celebrating. I took them off and carried them and ran as fast as possible to the doors, and when I entered I was met by a busy reception area, with no sign or Nathan or Lucas or any of the other guys._

_I went up to reception. There were two people in the queue waiting to talk to the receptionist, but I could not wait. I walked right up to her._

_"Do you know where Nathan Scott is?"_

_"Er... what was he in for?" She looked a bit irritated, along with the people queueing, that I'd cut in, but she could see how panicked I was._

_"I don't know!" I cried._

_"Well I'm sorry, but it's been pretty busy tonight. I've not seen everybody who has been in. Would he have just come in recently?"_

_"Yes! Just like a few minutes ago!"_

_"I'm sorry, he won't be on the computers then. Are you a relative?"_

_"I'm his wife! Oh God, where the hell is he?"_

_At that moment I turned around to see two paramedics and Lucas walk through the doors along with a stretcher trolley, on which Nathan was lying on his side, his face on the side I couldn't see. I ran up towards them._

_"Oh my God! Nathan! What happened? What's wro-" I had been glancing all over him to catch sight of any possible injuries. And then I saw it. A large shard of glass stuck into the small of his back, with blood all around it. "Oh my God! Can you not just take it out?" I urged the paramedics._

_"We have to wait until a doctor can do it, to minimise spinal damage."_

_Spinal damage. _

_"Wha-?" I ran round to the other side of the trolley, which was still being pushed to somewhere. Nathan's faced displayed utter agony. "Oh my God, Nathan!"_

_"Hales, I... I can't feel my legs..."_

_Tears sprung in my eyes. I held his hand as tightly as I could. I felt him squeeze back._

_"Nathan, you'll be okay..."_

_"I'm so scared, Haley." He looked up into my eyes, and I could see the fear in them. The tears began to stream down my face as we turned a corner and went into a room. I had to let go of his hand and stand back as the paramedics and some other hospital workers moved Nathan carefully onto the bed. _

_A man in a white coat then came through. He was obviously a doctor._

_"Nathan Scott? I'm Dr Harper. I understand you have a shard of glass in your lower spine, that correct?"_

_"Yeah, that's right," said Lucas._

_"Right. Well we're going to remove right now it and then observe the side effects. Right, if I could only have medical personnel in here right now, please." _

_"No! I don't want to leave him!" I cried._

_"I'm sorry, miss, but this is only a small room and a procedure that needs to be done carefully. I'll let you know when you can come back in here, it shouldn't be too long."_

_"Come on, Hales," Lucas said, putting his arm around me. I let him walk me out of the little room and over to some chairs nearby. _

_"What happened, Luke?" I asked as we sat down. "Why is there glass in his back?"_

_"Well, I don't know exactly what happened beforehand, but I was getting Barry so we could get the limo and on my way back to Nathan I saw him... being thrown through the window of the bar."_

_"What? Somebody THREW him through the window?" I asked, getting angry. Someone had DONE this to Nathan. It wasn't an "accident". Some jerk had thrown my husband through the god damn window and now he had to suffer. "Why?"_

_"Hales, I have no idea, I was getting Barry."_

_"Who the hell would do that?"_

_"Well... just after you left some guy started making fun of the Sonics, but Nathan just played it cool. But the guy got mad and tried to start on him, but Nathan walked away, and we went outside. Nathan actually went across the road to the car, but I told him I'd go get the limo. He was just standing outside the car, waiting for me, and after getting Barry the next thing I saw was Nathan being thrown through the bar window."_

_We then heard Nathan calling out in agony from the room. Tears began falling from my eyes even faster. Lucas brought me in for a hug. I just cried into him._

_"He HAS to be okay, Lucas."_

_"I know."_

_"But that piece of glass looked really bad. It was huge, and there was so much blood... And he said he couldn't feel his legs. That's just a temporary side-effect, right?" I had no idea if what I was saying made any sense, but I had to believe that him and me would be walking out of the hospital hand in hand tonight._

_"I have no idea, Haley. I'm not sure how deep it went in."_

_I sighed. I was getting the front of Lucas's shirt all wet with tears, but I didn't really care. We just sat there in silence for ten minutes._

_"Mrs Scott?" Dr Harper came out of Nathan's room and walked over to us._

_"Yeah? Is he okay? Can I see him? Can he come home tonight?"_

_"I'm afraid we're going to have to keep him in here tonight. But yes, you can see him." _

_With that, I ran into the room, to find Nathan laying there on the bed. He looked so sad and broken._

_"God, Nathan." I walked up to him and gave him a hug. He hugged me right back._

_"Hales..."_

_"What happened, Nathan?"_

_"What?"_

_"Why did someone throw you through a window?"_

_"Oh, er... look. Haley. That can wait. Didn't the doctor tell you?"_

_"Tell me what?"_

_"About my legs..."_

_"What, they're okay right?" I rubbed my hand along his leg and squeezed above his knee._

_"No, Hales. They're not."_

_"What? Can... can you not feel this?" I asked in a panic, continuing to squeeze his thigh harder and harder, as though doing so would make him say that yes, he could in fact feel it._

_"No, Haley. I can't feel that." _

_I looked from his leg up to his eyes, which were looking back into mine._

_"What? It- it's just temporary, right? You'll be fine tomorrow?" I knew what I was saying was utter nonsense - that didn't happen._

_"No, Hales. He can't give me an official prognosis until they've done more tests and stuff, but..." He looked down. I could tell he was fighting back tears._

_"Nathan." My voice was incredibly shakey. "But what?"_

_He looked up again. "But it looks like I'm going to have to be in a wheelchair for a couple of months."_

_"Oh my God." A wheelchair. That was bad. "But... a couple of months. So you'll be fine after a couple of months?"_

_"If by 'fine' you mean be able to walk, then yeah. But that's it, Haley. All I'll be able to do is walk. I... I probably won't ever be able to play basketball again."_

_Hearing those words come from such a broken, sad voice broke my heart. Basketball was Nathan's passion, his goal. This couldn't be happening. He'd worked his entire life to make it to the NBA... No. It wasn't possible. It couldn't be._

_"Nathan... no. There must be a mistake! You've only been in the hospital for fifteen minutes, they surely can't tell you that!"_

_"Haley... I don't know, alright? Look, I'm scared as hell right now, but I can't be naive. I have to accept what they're telling me, there's no point trying to believe that they're wrong."_

_"But you said they didn't know for sure? What if they got it wrong? Nathan, you can't not play basketball again. There has to be some mistake! If you can walk again, you can surely play again!"_

_"Haley, it's not just about my legs. It's my spine... the doctor said he'd come back soon, but he'll only be able to tell me for sure what's going on tomorrow after they do some more tests tonight."_

_He looked up at my tear-stained face. _

_"Nathan, I'm sorry, I just... this can't be happening... you can't be in a wheelchair, you can't not play the sport you love ever again... I refuse to believe it."_

_He reached out for me and pulled me in for a hug. I sat on his bed and just snuggled into him._

_"Don't be sorry, Haley. What you've been saying right now is what has been going through my head from when I realised I couldn't feel my legs up til when the doctor was telling me what would happen just a few minutes ago. 'There has to be a way, there must be something wrong here.' But it's looking pretty bad, Hales. If anyone should be sorry, it's me." _

_"For what?"_

_"Haley... Okay, please don't be mad..."_

_I looked at him._

_"Some guy was being a dick after you left, but I walked away. But then I heard him claiming that I'd hit him, which was a complete lie, so I went back in and told him to shut the hell up. And then... he said something horrible about you..."_

_"Nathan-" I said in a stern tone._

_"Look, Haley... he was a complete tool! And when he started talking smack about you I just couldn't handle it, so-"_

_"So you punched him?" I said, sitting up._

_"'Well, yes, but-"_

_"Nathan! Ughh! I thought you'd learned?" I stood up off the bed._

_"I have, Haley, alright? I-"_

_"Apparently not. So you're saying that the reason you're like this is because you heard someone say something about me that, oh, you didn't like, so you started a fight with them? That- that's just great Nathan."_

_"Haley, please, listen to me..."_

_"Nathan. I thought you'd changed. You said you walked away earlier on, why not that time?"_

_"Well - Lucas was there the first time, and-"_

_"Oh, great, so everytime you go somewhere that might possibly have someone that talks trash about you or me there we have to send someone with you so you don't get into a fight like some sort of child?"_

_"Haley, I'm sorry-"_

_"You're sorry, Nathan. That's great. That's just great. You do realise that it's not just me that this is affecting right? It'll affect Jamie, too!" I saw him wince at that. "And, Nathan, most importantly... it affects you. You can say you're sorry all you want, but it's you that this is going to be hardest on if that doctor's prognosis says what you think it will. I am going to hope and pray with all my heart that you WILL be able to do what you love again, but I honestly don't know how much good that's gonna do!"_

_"Haley, I know that! God, I... I don't know what to say! I'm sorry. I've ruined your life, Jamie's life, my life, I get it! I wish I could take it back but I can't, okay?"_

_"Nathan! Ugh, that's not what I sa-"_

_"Is everything alright in here?" asked Dr Harper as he opened the door._

_"Yeah, great," I said sarcastically._

_"Okay, well, Nathan, we're going to run some tests. Mrs Scott, you're welcome to stay but it might be good to go home and get some rest," he said._

_Nathan looked at me, then looked down. I could tell that he expected me to walk out of the room. It's what I thought I was going to do too._

_"No, I'll stay." And I walked back over to the bed and held his hand._

_After Dr Harper had done all that he needed to do, I went out to the hallway to call Laura, to see if she could stay all night at our's._

_"Look, I'm really sorry, but I think I'm going to stay here all night. Would it be totally inconvenient for you if I asked you to stay until morning?" It was now about 3am. "I'll give you the extra cash for all these extra hours..."_

_"Haley, dear, don't you worry about that for a second. Don't even bother thinking about the money, I'm here to help you. Of course I'll stay."_

_"Thank you so much, Laura. I need to get back, now, but thanks."_

_After I hung up, I sat in one of the chairs in the corridor and rested my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands. This was all too much. How could our lives change so much within a few minutes?_

_"Haley, you should get sleep," I heard Lucas say. I looked up to see him coming over to me._

_"Hey, I didn't know you were still here."_

_"Yeah, I am, but you should go home, get some rest."_

_"No, I want to stay, I just called Laura and she can stay all night."_

_"Oh, okay. Nathan just told me you were pretty pissed at him for the whole fight thing, so I thought maybe..."_

_"You thought maybe I'd just abandon my husband?" I snapped._

_"No, Haley, of course not, I don't know, I just-"_

_"No, I'm sorry Luke. I shouldn't have snapped at you like that. I mean... of course I'm mad about it, but I'm not leaving."_

_"Okay. I'm gonna go get myself a coffee, you want one?"_

_"No, thanks."_

_He walked off in the direction of a coffee machine while I looked down at myself. I was still wearing the white dress that I had worn earlier that night at the bar, and my heels. Stupid heels that wouldn't let me run. _

_I stayed in that chair for a few minutes, before going back into Nathan's room. I expected him to be sitting up, but he was lying down and it looked like he was sleeping._

_A nurse came in the room behind me._

_"Oh, hello." She saw me looking at his sleeping form. "He's just sleeping right now, we gave him some pain medication for his back which causes drowsiness, it's kind of like a mild sedative."_

_"Oh, okay."_

_"It's better that we do that than have him have an uncomfortable night, not able to get to sleep after all the stuff he's been through. You can go home if you want, get some rest. He'll be out cold until morning."_

_"No, I want to stay if that's okay," I said, having never taken my eyes off him as she spoke to me._

_"Yeah, that's fine. Call me or any of the other nurses if you need anything. I'm Nancy."_

_"Thank you," I said with a weak smile before heading over to the big chair next to the bed. It wasn't one of those crappy plastic chairs like they had in the hallway, but a big comfortable-looking one with a proper back and armrests. I contemplated just snuggling alongside Nathan on the bed, but I was scared that I would somehow hurt his back or his legs if I did that. So I curled up in a ball on that chair and watched him. Watched him breathe with a steady rhythm. That was one thing I had to be thankful for. He was alive. When Lucas phoned and sounded worried about Nathan, my mind immediately thought of the worst. But he was here._

_The next morning, I was woken up by the same nurse, Nancy. Nathan was still sleeping, so I went to go and get a cup of coffee to wake myself up. I called Laura to make sure she was okay to stay for the next little while, then made my way back to Nathan's room. _

_I opened the door to find him already awake, and talking to Dr Harper. He turned around when I walked in._

_"Ah, Mrs Scott, good. I'd like to speak with both of you." He didn't look very optimistic, which just made me even more scared._

_I walked over to the bed and looked into Nathan's eyes. I could see that fear again. I held his hand as we waited for the doctor to start speaking._

_"I'm afraid it's as bad as we had perceived. I'm very sorry Nathan, but due to the damage the glass has caused to the base of your spinal cord, it's unlikely you'll be able to play basketball again - you certainly won't be able to have a career in basketball anyway. I'm sorry."_

_I felt him squeeze my hand, just as tears sprung in my eyes._

_"I know how awful that is for you, Nathan, but you should realise how lucky you are that with a few months of physical therapy, you will be able to walk again."_

_"Lucky? Yeah, that's me," he said sarcastically. I knew he wasn't trying to be rude to the doctor, but hearing that he couldn't pursue the career of his dreams anymore did not amount to the word lucky. We knew the doctor was right - we were so lucky he would be able to walk again. But Nathan without basketball just... did not seem right._

_"I'm very sorry, Mr Scott. I wish there was something I could do, I really do. I'll leave you two alone for a minute."_

_Nathan looked up at me. I could see the intense hurt swirling in his eyes. Tears were already falling down my cheeks, and I could tell Nathan was struggling to hold his own in._

_"Nathan, I... I don't know what to say."_

_He reached a hand up to me and wiped the tears away from my face._

_"I'm sorry, Haley."_

_I sat on the edge of the bed and wrapped my arms around him._

_"Don't be, Nathan. We have so much to face now, together. The last thing we need is for me to be mad at you about the fight."_

_"I know, Hales, but..."_

_"But nothing, okay?" My voice was quivering. "We can't change it now. But you have to promise me, Nathan, that you will never do anything stupid like that again, okay? Never."_

_"I promise."_

_We then hugged in silence for a few minutes, before I realised that I would have to relieve Laura of her duties._

_"Nathan, I have to go home. Laura stayed over last night to watch Jamie..."_

_"Jamie."_

_"Yeah..."_

_"How am I going to tell Jamie, Haley? He won't understand..."_

_"We'll do it together, Nathan."_

_"Yeah." He looked down. I couldn't bear to see him so sad._

_"Nathan, look at me," I said, tilting his chin up to look at me. "I love you. Okay? I love you whether or not you play basketball, whether or not you can walk, whether or not you can cook a freaking steak. All that matters is that you are here, being you."_

_He reached up for a kiss. The feel of his lips on mine was enough for me to know that we would make it through this together, no matter how long it took. I leaned my forehead against his. _

_"God, I love you Haley."_

I was snapped back to the present-day when I received another kick from Jamie from in his sleep. When we had told Jamie about Nathan being no longer able to play basketball, he didn't really understand it and kept asking why. Not to put the blame on Jamie, but I think that was one of the many factors that sent Nathan deeper down into his depression.

The first week or two back from the hospital when Nathan was in his wheelchair weren't so bad. I stood strong by him, and he hadn't started behaving too differently. Sure, he had to stay downstairs and sleep on the couch, but he'd get up each day and talk to me about my teacher training and we'd try and contact specialists for his condition. After the first week I noticed a small change - he'd stop kissing me goodbye when I left for the day, and he'd be a bit more strict with Jamie.

When I had to spend time out of the house, Lucas would try his best to be there to keep him company and take him out for a walk, but he wasn't available all the time and even if he was, I didn't want Nathan feeling like he was being babysat. But after that first week and a half of trying his best to remain strong even though the horrible weight that he was carrying was crushing him inside, he started watching basketball games. He'd been trying not to for that time because it would be too hard, but from then on there would always be a basketball game on.

When he used to watch basketball, it would simply be for pleasure. But when he started watching it again then, it simply caused him pain. He would watch Seattle games, knowing that it should have been him at Shooting Guard.

That was when things started to change. I would talk to him, and he would respond with a very short answer. He'd stop bothering going outside. He'd no longer ask me how mine or Jamie's day was when we came home. We were quickly becoming very disconnected. When I asked him why he was being so weird, he just said that there was no point. No point in him trying anymore, since all that had done had resulted in him being stuck in wheel chair and sleeping on the couch, surrounded by what could have been. I would try to hide the remote from him so he couldn't be surrounded by it, but he still managed to find it.

After a short while I had started to notice that he was watching a recorded programme of the draft - the draft in which he was supposed to be the tenth pick for the Sonics. He watched it so often that the name Mohammed Senay, which was the actual tenth pick for the Sonics, rang in our ears. Every time I heard it play, it broke my heart. But however much it hurt me, I knew Nathan was hurting ten times worse.

After this, Nathan shut himself off completely. He would never start conversation, and if I tried talking to him he would remain quiet or snap back a snarky response. Then the drinking started. Nearly every night he would get his hands on some alcohol and just drink. Drink the pain away. A lot of nights I managed to keep alcohol away from him, but there were still a lot where he managed to find it or reach it.

And that's how it was for months. Until the night after Jamie's Soap Box Derby, where I told him that if we had one more night like that then I would take Jamie and leave. That night I heard him come up the stairs and he asked me if he could take Jamie out. I knew this was him trying, so I let it happen. Over the next few days he had stopped drinking and started using his crutches and doing physical therapy, but he still hadn't properly talked to me. He'd managed to make it upstairs slowly with his crutches and sleep in our bed with me, but it wasn't like it used to be. We didn't cuddle up together. But still, I knew he was trying.

A few nights after my ultimatum, I came home from work to find Nathan and Jamie waiting for me at the dinner table, telling me that this was how it was going to be from now on. And that was the beginning of things starting to get back to normal. I was so happy. He was really trying - he cut his hair and stopped using his wheelchair and tried helping Quentin for me and we would actually have conversations again. Things were definitely looking up and getting back to normal, and after our kiss by the trophy cabinet I could definitely feel myself completely forgiving him for those months. He told me time and again how sorry he was, and I believed him - he didn't want to hurt us like that and admitted how wrong he'd been, and I loved him for that.

But we still hadn't recovered fully when Carrie became a problem. But knowing, while I was still trying to get to grips with things with Nathan after his accident, that Carrie was flirting with him and kissing him, just made me feel terrible. We still hadn't had sex when I found out about Carrie and kicked him out - I just still hadn't been ready to be intimate with him again, and now I still had a problem with it. I had put a wall up around myself when Nathan was in his depression, trying not to let my emotions reach the surface and not putting myself out there in case I was hurt by his snappy replies. Those walls began to come down when I walked in to find Nathan waiting for me at the dinner table with Jamie that night, but as soon as I walked in on him and Carrie in the shower they went shooting right back up.

I knew he wasn't cheating on me with her. I knew that. But it was all extremely confusing and I wasn't ready to tear down those walls yet - I couldn't just let Nathan home and be afraid to be hurt like that again. I knew I would eventually be able to, but I just wasn't ready yet.

It was a Sunday, so I didn't need to get up early and get Jamie ready for school. I contemplated just staying in bed and being lazy. I got up and got dressed and thought about phoning Principal Turner. I would either have to tell him that I was coming back in this week, or that I was going to take another week off.

I knew I wanted to stay off work, but I'd have to go back sometime... but I just didn't think I was ready. I'd still be working when Jamie finished school for half an hour and that's when Nathan had Ravens practice, and I didn't want him to be with anyone but us.

As I was spinning the phone around on the breakfast bar, it started to ring. It was Nathan.

"Hey Nathan," I said as I picked up.

"Hey, you okay today?"

"What?" I laughed. "Yeah, why wouldn't I be?"

"Well, you weren't exactly in your full state of mind last night, so I wasn't sure how you'd be this morning," he said with a laugh.

"Oh, right. I didn't think I was that bad, was I?"

"No, no you weren't bad at all. But I've seen how hungover you can get..."

"Yes, okay, let's just not go there please?" I said jokingly.

"Sure. So, what time's good for me to come over today?"

"Oh, er... whenever really."

"Okay, well how's about I come over at 6ish? Thought I might go for a run this afternoon, it's a nice day."

"Yep, that sounds good. You sure you're up for a run?"

"Yeah, I've been going for runs for the past three weeks."

"Oh." I don't know why, but I was shocked. He hadn't been on any runs after his accident before he started staying at Lucas's. I was glad that he was able to, but worried at the same time. "Nathan, don't over-do it, with your back and everything..."

"Haley, I'm fine, seriously. Don't worry."

"Okay, just be careful. Now that you've called... I kinda need some advice."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, about work. I don't know... Do you think I should go back tomorrow?"

"I don't know Hales, do you want to?"

I loved it when he called me Hales. He did it so often, but the fact it just rolled off his tongue made me feel special whenever he did it.

"Well... I don't want to let Principal Turner down, especially since I've only being at this job a month."

"That's not what I asked. Do you _want_ to go back tomorrow?"

"I... I don't know. A part of me thinks that it would be good for me to get back to work as soon as possible and just get on with it, but... Ugh, I don't know."

"Haley, it seems pretty obvious that you don't want to. If you did want to go back to work, then you'd just know, you wouldn't have to think about it."

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

"Just stay off for a few more days and then see what you're feeling like. I don't want you going in and regretting it and worrying about Jamie and not being able to concentrate."

"Yeah. Yes, okay, you're right, I'll let him know. Thanks, Nathan."

"No worries. See you tonight?"

"Yep, see you."

God, I loved him.

* * *

**Thanks for reading! Reviews are the best. :]**


	5. When It Comes

**A/N: **Okay guys. I am sooooo so so so so sorry about taking absolutely ages to update. I realise that my stupidness over this will have lost me a lot of readers, but for those who are sticking with the story, a massive THANK YOU. I especially feel bad after getting great reviews regarding my regular updates... I was just completely uninspired for this chapter at first. I would keep coming up with great scenarios in my head for later on in the story, but I didn't have much for his chapter. But after weeks of adding tiny little bits to it, I finally finished it properly today. I promiseeeee that I will update MUCH more regularly, like every few days or whatever with the rest of the story. And if for some reason I don't, then message me! Or review the chapter, because seeing people's words about my writing makes me want to write more.

So here's the next chapter. Like it? Hate it? Tell meee. And remember the fic won't finish when the four weeks are up, it's going to go on to fill in some gaps and make up for lack of good NH scenes in the remainder of S5 and the first 22 episodes of S6! Ha.

And again, I am so sorry for taking so long, it will not happen again, I assure you, unless there's some big important reason or something. I didn't have a big important reason this time, other than the fact I was uninspired... tbh at first this chapter was kind of a filler at first before I got onto the good stuff I have planned for later on, but today it turned into a proper (hopefully good) ~scene~ between Nathan and Haley. And I promise I won't be uninspired again, because I already know all the good stuff I want to happen in the upcoming chapters.

Flashback is in italics. Chapter named after an awesome song by Tyler Hilton... I'm sure you all know him ;)

**Remember to review! :]**

* * *

After my run and after fixing up a (slightly crappy) scrambled egg on toast for my dinner I went by the house. It still felt so strange having to visit my own house... I hoped it wouldn't last much longer. I needed to be home, I hated going to Lucas's place every night, completely alone.

Jamie answered the door and leapt into my arms as usual.

"Hi daddy!"

"Hey, buddy. Man, you are just growing a couple feet each day, aren't you?" I said to my ever-growing son.

"Yep, pretty soon I'll be as tall as you!"

"Hmm, we'll see about that," I said as I carried him through to the living room.

"Hey," Haley said from the couch, reading a magazine. "Jamie, get off your dad!"

Jamie jumped down from my arms.

"Why, momma?"

"Well..." she looked up at me.

"Hales, my back is fine." I knew her well enough to know what was worrying her. Even though she shouldn't have been worrying... I was kind of glad she was. Gave me that extra hope that let me know that, as slow as things were going, we would eventually make it back. She still cared.

"I know, but Nathan-"

"But nothing, alright? Don't worry about it, please."

"Okay," she said with a smile.

"Dad, can we watch a movie tonight?" Jamie asked me.

"Sure, Jamie, what one you wanna watch?"

"Hmm..." he searched through the DVD cabinet. "This one," he said, pulling out Toy Story.

I went over to stick it in the DVD player while Haley got up to go to the kitchen.

"Momma, where are you going?"

"Oh, ah, I was going to go make a cup of coffee and then maybe tidy up upstairs. Why?"

"I think you should watch the movie with us!"

She looked at me. I could tell that she was uncomfortable with what he had said, so as much as I wanted things to return to normal as quickly as possible, I stuck up for her current situation.

"Jamie, if your mom's busy then you should just let her be."

She looked relieved when I said that, before Jamie piped up again.

"Please, momma! Upstairs doesn't need tidying."

She looked at me, then back at Jamie. She sighed.

"Okay buddy, we can watch the movie."

I was surprised at her agreeing to watch it with us, but then again, Jamie had us both wrapped around his little finger.

I turned to go and sit on the couch, waiting for them to join me. Jamie bounded up next to me, cuddling into me. Haley looked at us, clearly uneasy with the sitting positions, but I couldn't really do anything about it. Jamie had made up his mind.

She sat down next to us, leaving a bit of distance between her and Jamie so she wouldn't be too close to me. It felt ridiculous, but I understood that she needed time.

I pressed play and the film began, and Jamie tried to pull Haley closer towards us.

"Jamie..."

"What?" he asked innocently. There was no answer to that "what". We couldn't really explain the situation to a four year old. I struggled to explain the situation to myself, never mind our son.

"Nothing," she sighed, and leaned closer into us, her hand on Jamie's hair. We still weren't touching or anything, so it wasn't like she had anything to be tense about. It felt better to be closer to eachother, not putting unnecessary distance between ourselves.

An hour and a bit later the film finished, along with Jamie starting to doze off. If either of us moved it would have woken him, so once the film credits had finished we were just sitting there in silence. I gave her a sideways glance to find that she was doing the same thing to me, and then she burst out laughing.

"What?" I asked, amused.

"Nothing," she said, trying to be quiet as to not wake Jamie. "It was just funny."

"Yeah, I guess."

"Oh hey, I was thinking... since I'm not going back to work yet, do you think you could maybe ask Quentin to hand in his Les Mis book reports to you at practice? That way I can keep helping him with it and... it'll give me something to do, even if it only takes twenty minutes out of my day."

"Of course, Hales, I'll ask him tomorrow," I told her, still trying to keep our voices quiet so Jamie wouldn't stir.

"Thanks. I know I should get back to work, but-"

"But nothing, Haley, alright? You'll go back when you're ready, it'll just take time for you to get over it."

"Yeah. Time."

"Yes, Haley, time. Maybe looking over Quentin's book reports will help you get back in the teaching mode, who knows?"

"Yeah, maybe," she said, still looking uncertain.

"Hales, come on, it felt like forever for me to start walking again after... After I got out of my jackass stage."

"Oh, yeah, that," she said with a jokey smile. "Yeah, and you persevered with your crutches and physical therapy and your cane and you didn't give up then, which says what about me? That I should just get off my butt and go back to work!"

"No, Haley, it doesn't mean that at all! I started walking again that night because it was the right time for it to happen. Well, it maybe should have been a few weeks or months earlier, but..."

"Nathan."

"Yeah. I walked that night because it was the right time, it felt right... it felt great, and I had motivation from you and Jamie. If you went back now, you wouldn't be ready and it wouldn't feel right," I told her. I needed her to know that there was absolutley no pressure for her to go back to work.

"Okay, yeah, you're right." She looked into my eyes and whispered "Thank you. That was a good day."

"What was?"

"When you started walking again!"

_"So, Nathan... do you think you're ready for this?"_

_"I... I think so." I was sitting on the couch in the living room with my cane propped against the table next to it._

_"Come on, daddy!"_

_"Ugh, okay... but... Actually, you know what, I think I might give it a few days..."_

_"Nathan, come on," Haley encouraged._

_"But what if... what if I can't?"_

_"Nathan, you will."_

_"Come on daddy, of course you will!" He ran over to the breakfast bar in the kitchen. "Walk to me daddy!"_

_I took a few deep breaths. I didn't want to disappoint them. They looked so hopeful that I'd be able to walk just fine, and I didn't want to let them down. Haley saw my doubtful look._

_"Hey, Nathan. Just do it. If it doesn't come easy today... we'll do it tomorrow. And we'll keep trying. But I know you can do this. Come on."_

_Just looking into her eyes I could tell she believed in me._

_"Alright, but... I might need some support..."_

_She stood up from next to me and held out her hands._

_"I'm a bit heavy, Hales!"_

_"Nathan, come on!"_

_I was scared. Scared of disppointing my family, and of the thought that if I couldn't do it today... I'd maybe never be able to do it any other day._

_"Daddy, come walk to me!" Jamie piped up from the breakfast bar. I looked over at him, looking eager as anything. _

_I looked up and Haley was still standing before me, ready to help me get up. I took her hands and mustered all the strength I could in my legs to get up. I didn't want to put as much pressure on her as I usually put on my cane, incase I caused her to fall. My butt was a little bit off the couch, getting higher and higher as I urged all my strength to let me do this._

_"That's it Nathan! Come on!"_

_With Haley's words of encouragement, I forced myself off the couch quickly, but the pressure on my legs felt a little too much and they gave way, causing me to fall back on the couch. It was so god damn infuriating!_

_"GOD! I cannot do this!" I shouted angrily. I quickly glanced over at Jamie, who looked a bit startled at my outburst. "Hey, I'm sorry buddy. I just..."_

_"Nathan, it's okay. Try again."_

_"What? Try again so I can just end up back on my ass on this stupid couch?"_

_She smiled. _

_"No. Come on. Even if you don't walk tonight, just try and stand without the cane," she said gently. She held her hands out again. Her eyes were looking right into mine._

_"Okay."_

_I took her hands again, this time even more determined. And I knew not to quickly force myself up. I slowly lifted up from the couch and leaned forward so I was standing, leaning on Haley._

_"I'm doing it!" I said, ecstatic._

_Haley looked equally elated._

_"Yes! Nathan, you're doing so good! Aw, come on! Want me to take the first couple steps with you?"_

_"Uh, yeah. God, I feel like such a child."_

_As I got used to my entire weight falling on my legs, I shifted from foot to foot. It was painful, but there was enough strength there for me to keep standing and know I could walk._

_"You ready?" Haley asked me._

_"Yeah." All the strength and concentration in me focussed on putting one foot in front of the other. I lifted my right foot forward, causing my left leg to feel all the weight. I wavered a little bit but Haley was holding tightly onto me. God, I loved her. She believed in me so much. When my right foot was finally forward, it was time to move the left one. Haley was walking backwards with me towards the kitchen. After I had eventually made my first few steps, Haley let go of my hands but still stayed in front of me just in case._

_It was time for me to do it on my own. I slowly began taking a step, and as much as it felt like I need to just give in and fall, I was determined. I wouldn't let my legs betray me. After taking one step forward, I slowly took another, and then another, and then another..._

_"Nathan, you're doing it!" Haley squealed excitedly._

_"Yes, daddy! Come on, just a little bit further!"_

_The walking began to feel so natural. I continued until I reached Jamie._

_"You did it! Nathan you did it!" Haley exclaimed before running over to hug me. "Are you okay?"_

_"Yeah! Yes! I did it!" I said, hugging her back. It felt so good, to be able to properly hold my wife._

_"Oh, Nathan, that makes me so happy!" Haley was definitely giddy. I hadn't seen her this happy in a long, long time. I knew that was my fault. But I couldn't help but smile at how happy she was._

_"Oh, me too." I began bending my knees. They were stiff and it was a bit strenuous on my whole legs, but after a couple of bends it began to feel better. "I can't believe it!" _

_"I knew you could do it, daddy!"_

_I bent down to embrace him in a hug. I couldn't help myself but grin from ear to ear. _

_"Thank you Jamie, you were a big help, you know."_

_"I was?"_

_"Yep!" I looked up to find Haley smiling ecstatically, with tears in her eyes. "Haley?"_

_"Oh, I'm fine, I just... Nathan, I... I am so unbelievably proud of you right now. I am so happy you've managed this!"_

_I stood up and hugged her in a tight embrace. _

_"Thank you."_

_She loosened her grip on the hug and returned to her normal height from her tippy toes. She looked right into my eyes. There were still tears in her's, but I knew they were tears of joy. She reached up as I lowered my head and caught her lips in mine. It was a tender kiss, in which I could just feel her heightened emotion. She then smiled against my mouth._

_That moment felt perfect._

"Yeah, it really was," I agreed. That night had felt so good. Haley was thrilled about it all evening and the smile never vanished from her face. It felt like that was the last time I'd seen her smile so genuinely. And I knew that was my fault. "Listen, Haley..."

She looked at me.

"Do you think, we should... maybe talk?"

I saw her become instantly uncomfortable.

"Er, not right now, I think we need to get Jamie to bed," she said, not looking at me and moving from Jamie's embrace.

"Uh, okay, well after he's in bed...?"

"Actually, I was planning on, er, getting some stuff done tonight..."

I knew she just didn't really want to talk to me. I had to respect that, though. After all, it was my fault things were like this. I couldn't force her to talk when she didn't want to.

"Oh, okay, that's okay," I said, standing up. "Want me to take him to bed?" I motioned to Jamie.

"Uh, yeah, great," she said, taking the disc out of the DVD player and returning it to its box.

After I'd tucked in Jamie, I went downstairs.

"So, uh... I'll just take off now."

"Yeah, sure."

"Bye, Hales."

And then I left. Yet again.

* * *

It was breaking my heart to be apart from him. He was my Nathan. My Nathan that I could always lean on and depend on whenever I needed it. I knew he was still there for me to do that... but there was still that small sliver inside me that didn't want to. There was still that small feeling that it was too soon to tear down those walls for the fear of having to put them right back up again. I knew I would eventually be able to... but not yet.

On that Sunday night when Nathan had asked to talk, I froze. I knew it was stupid and childish, and I should probably have had some proper explanation about why I didn't want to talk... but I didn't. I just didn't want to. I didn't want to hear him talk about missing living here and that he wanted to come home... it would have just broken my heart. Of course I missed him too, but I wasn't ready for him to be home and I didn't want to have to deal with telling him that and seeing his heart break further. I just didn't want to face the problem. I wasn't running from it... but I wasn't moving forward either. I was staying stuck where we were, just waiting for that moment where I would be ready to let him in. I would maybe talk with him more about it at the therapy session... it didn't feel as awkward talking about our situation there, seeing as that was a main reason we went there. But to talk about it in our home? I just hated it, and I was too cowardly to face it.

Nathan didn't bring up talking about it again the next few days. He came by every night to play with Jamie, and some nights we would talk as well, about Quentin and the team and my job. Sometimes the conversation would just feel so normal, as if we weren't actually in our current situation. But then it would get time for him to leave, and I could feel my heartstrings tugging. I knew it was my fault that he had to leave every night... sure, there was a reason we were in this position and that was down to him, but it was me who had stupidly said I wanted a divorce and not asked him to come home because I was too scared to talk about it and admit that I was just being weak in waiting for a moment to come where I'd feel secure about things, instead of trying to seek out that moment myself. I just did not want to argue with Nathan. The argument we had a week before Luke's wedding was absolutely awful, especially as it led to us not watching Jamie and him lying face-down in the pool. I got shivers everytime I thought about it... I NEVER wanted to feel like that again. And now that Jamie had been kidnapped... my protectiveness was higher than ever.

When Nathan was over on Thursday, he came back downstairs after putting Jamie to bed.

"Well he's finally settled down, after much drama about the story I read him," chuckled Nathan.

I smiled.

"Aw, little man. I might just go check on him, maybe have an early night or something."

"Okay, well Haley, before you do, I was wondering... if we could maybe just... talk about... things."

_Damn it. _

"Uh, Nathan... I don't know if I can do that right now..." I said pathetically, my voice trailing off while trying to avoid eye contact.

"Hales, I know it's hard, but do you not think we should at least talk? I won't ask you to do anything you're not ready for, I just... I just want to talk."

My mind was becoming filled with some stupid sort of panic, wanting to avoid this.

"Nathan, I... I just want to go to bed, we can talk another time."

"Haley," he said gently. "Please."

"Not now, Nathan..."

"Why?"

I didn't have a reason why.

"I don't... I don't know."

"Haley, come on, I just want to get a glimpse of what's going on in your head... these past few weeks have been killing me."

"Nathan, I... Me too, but..."

"But what? You just don't want to talk about it?" His voice was getting a bit louder and had more urgency to it.

"Nathan, I just don't want to argue," I said quietly.

"We're not arguing, Haley!"

"Well you're yelling!" I said, my voice getting a little louder too.

"I am not yelling! Haley, god, all I want is to know how you're feeling. I can usually always tell exactly what's going on with you, but now... Now I have no idea! You keep refusing to talk to me about anything about this!"

"Well you see why? Because it turned into an argument!"

"Haley..." his voice lowered a bit. "We're pretty much arguing over whether or not we're having an argument. All I want to know is... how are you feeling about things right now, with... with us? Like, are you... do you think you'll ever..." I could tell he was struggling finding his words. "I don't know Hales, if you could just give me something. Anything!"

"I don't know what you want to hear from me, Nathan! I know that what I say isn't what you'll want to hear!" Tears well building up in my eyes. "I'm just not ready for you to come home, or... for this... I just... I don't know, okay?" My eyes were now watering, threatening to let the tears spill.

"Hales... don't cry," Nathan said, his voice now softer. "I'm sorry, okay? I shouldn't have pressured you to talk, I said at the start I wouldn't make you do or say anything, I'm sorry."

I just kept looking at him. Looking at my husband, who was only trying to get his wife to talk to him about how she was feeling. And yet I had just turned it into what I didn't want... an argument.

Through my struggle to keep my tears held back, one escaped down my cheek.

"Hales..." Nathan rushed toward me.

I held my hands up to keep him away.

"I'm fine."

He looked deep down into my eyes. Everytime he looked at me like that my heart did a flip, and this time was no exception. I lowered my hands... I couldn't keep him away from me when he looked at me like that.

He lifted his hand to my cheek and wiped the tear away. We were looking at eachother so intently, and I felt the atmosphere shifting. It was intense, but a different kind of intense.

I wanted him. To kiss him, to just get lost in him, my husband.

But no. I knew I wasn't ready.

And that thought allowed more tears to well up and eventually fall.

"Haley..."

At his soothing voice I couldn't help but begin to sob. Something came over me that I just couldn't help myself from letting out the emotion that had been building up. I had cried some nights, but I couldn't let go with Jamie there. But now I just needed to let it out.

Nathan wrapped his arms around me and held me close in his warm embrace. I savoured being in his arms. I leaned my head against his chest and just sobbed into him, not caring about any sounds I made or how wet I was getting his jumper... it was Nathan, I didn't have to worry about that kind of stuff with him.

He held me tight and rubbed my back, giving me that soothing effect he always seemed to be able to do. Then I felt his hand at the back of my neck, nestling about in my hair. It always felt so good when he did that, with his chin rested on the top of my head.

So I just cried, and cried, and cried. Nathan was the person whose shoulder I could always lean on... even now, when the situation involved him. I just leaned into him as I sobbed, letting go of the emotion that had been bottled up inside of me.

When my sobbing eventually calmed down, I stepped back and looked up at him.

"Nathan... I'm sorry."

"What are you sorry for?"

"For... for not having an answer for all of this. I wish I did, but I don't."

"Haley, don't be sorry, alright? I shouldn't have tried to make you say something you didn't want to. I'm the one who's sorry." He let me go from his embrace but wiped my face of any remaining tears. I shivered at his touch. This man had such an effect on me, and even when I was so emotionally charged, I still felt it. "Right, I should probably go." He looked at me with those beautiful blue eyes. "Bye, Hales."

"Bye Nathan," I whispered as I pulled him back in for another hug. I closed my eyes as I squeezed him, wishing desperately that time would move quickly over the future days or weeks or however long it would take me to be ready for us again. I then reluctantly let go of him and watched him turn around and look at me as he walked out the door.

Nathan and I were one. When we weren't together... we just weren't complete.

* * *

**Thanks for reading! Review :]**


	6. World Spins Madly On

**A/N: **Hey guys! Sorry for the slight delay with this chapter, I had most of it written but then my computer got a stupid virus so had to go and get fixed. But it's all good now! And I finished the chapter with the final two sections. Hopefully you'll enjoy! Next chapter will be coming very shortly.

Oh and by the way, don't know if you noticed, cause I didn't til afterwards, but the fact I named the therapist Miranda has nothing to do with Miranda from S7! I was trying to think of a good name for her, and in my head 'Miranda' sounded good with an English accent (since the S5 therapist has that), and it never hit me that that was because of S7 Miranda! Haha, so that was completely undeliberate.

Anyway, chapter named after awesome song by The Weepies, which is on episode 3x13 of good old OTH! I'm insaaanely excited for season 8. Hopefully lots of good Naley! Fingers crossed!

**Subscribe and review** if you wish... keeps me motivated. :]

* * *

The next day I went along Red Bedroom to visit Peyton and see how things were going with Mia's tour.

"Haley James Scott! What brings you here?" Peyton called when she saw me come through the door of her office.

"Oh, well I wanted to know if you'd been hearing from Mia... and I wanted to check in on my buddy! How you doing?"

"I'm fine," she said. I wasn't convinced. "Mia's doing amazing though, she actually just called this morning to tell me how much she's loving it!"

"Aw, that's great, I'm glad she's enjoying herself."

"You miss it?"

"Miss what?" I questioned.

"Well... the kind of life Mia's got now. On the road."

"Oh. Well... Yeah? No, not really... I don't know. Now. Be honest. How are you doing, Peyton?"

"Ah, so I didn't convince you with my oh-so original 'fine' response?" she asked with a smile.

"Not for a second, girlie," I said, while perching on the edge of her desk. She got out of her seat behind the desk and joined me.

"Well, I guess you could say I'm doing pretty crappy. I mean, work's great and I love hearing from Mia and everything, and I know I have Brooke, and you... but..."

"But Lucas is gone."

"Yeah. Well. It's not so much the fact that Lucas is gone as the fact that he... he said 'I do', Haley!"

"I know, Peyton."

"It's just..." I could see tears forming in her eyes. "I just can't believe it." She blinked back her tears. "I mean, even though he was with Lindsey, I always kind of thought we'd end up together... I just told myself that Lucas would realise he wouldn't want to go through with the wedding. I of course didn't want Lindsey to get hurt, but... God, I don't know. I just can't believe he said 'I do.'"

"I'm sorry, Peyton," I said, putting my arm around her. "I really am."

"Thanks," she whispered. "I know you were friends with Lindsey..."

"Peyton, listen to me. Lindsey was a good friend, she was. But she's not you, okay? I hate seeing you hurt like this... this is exactly what I didn't want for Lindsey when I saw you guys kissing."

"Yeah, Hales, I understand. I feel horrible about that... but it doesn't matter now. He wants Lindsey, not me."

"You can always hope, Peyton," I told her. "Have faith that things will get better." This was also kind of advice for myself.

"Yeah. I mean... there's more to life than Lucas, right?" she said with a weak laugh.

"Right! You have Brooke, Mia, Skills, Mouth, me, Nathan..."

"Speaking of," she said, standing up and looking a bit better than she had a few moments ago, "How are things with you two?"

I sighed. I really did not want to talk about my problems.

"Ugh... fine."

"HJS, if you're going to lie than at least add a little creativity to it! Don't use the same lie used 5 minutes previously by the person you're talking to!" she laughed. "Seriously, Hales. How's it going right now?"

"I... er... things are okay," I lied.

"Haley."

"Brooke!"

"What, you've forgotten my name already?"

"No, Brooke's here!" I said, pointing to the door, where Brooke was walking over to us.

"Hey guys!" she said cheerily.

"What you got there?" I asked her, noticing out of the corner of my eye that Peyton was looking at me, knowing me too well that I was desperately trying to change the subject.

"This..." Brooke said, holding up the envelope I was asking about, "...is a form that I have to fill out for the adoption agency!"

"Woah, already?"

"Yep! And once it's turned in and checked, I should get someone from the agency to like, interview me or something!"

"Are you sure you want to do this now, Brooke?" I asked. I didn't want her rushing into anything.

"Yes, I'm sure."

"And what about Owen? Told him yet?" Peyton asked.

Brooke looked to the floor. "Not exactly."

"Brooke!"

"Well, it's not like I'm going to ask him to be the father. Plus, I just kind of want to keep it between us until I know what's going on. I mean, I might fill out the form wrong or the interviewer will hate me, or..."

"Brooke, they're gonna love you," Peyton told her, giving her a playful punch in the shoulder. "But, B. Davis, you just kind of interrupted my conversation with Haley here!"

"Peyton!"

"Ooh, sorry. Well I'm done with my news, what's up?"

"No, Brooke, you didn't interrupt anything."

"Oh really? Then how come I never got a proper answer out of you?" Peyton continued.

"About what?" Brooke asked.

"Nothing!"

"About you and Nathan, Hales!" Peyton said. "Come on, it might help to talk."

"Yeah Haley, how are things?"

"Oh my God, you guys! I love you for caring, but really, don't worry about me."

"Come on, Tutor Girl, you should tell us, we're your friends. Whatever you say we're not going to judge you or anything."

"I just... things aren't the best, but... I don't know. Hopefully they'll get better soon."

"I'm sorry, that answer just ain't good enough," Brooke said with a grin.

"When's the next therapy session?"

"Tomorrow."

"How'd the last one go?"

"Fine."

"That's what you said last time we asked."

"That's cause it's the truth!"

"Sure."

"Has Nathan still been coming over every day?"

"Yep."

"Do you guys talk?"

"Yeah."

"About what?"

"Stuff."

"What kinda stuff?"

"Just stuff!"

"How's Jamie?"

"He's... good actually, he's doing a lot better than me after the whole kidnapping thing. I wish I had his strength."

"Aaah, so when it's about Jamie, she talks," Brooke said with a smile.

"Yeah, finally something but a one-word answer!"

I had to laugh. But all their questions about Nathan... I just wasn't really comfortable talking about our problems. I usually could talk to them about anything, but this... this was different. This was between Nathan and me, and it was bigger than anything that had happened recently. The only person I could talk to about it without feeling extremely weird was with the therapist, simply because that was the reason we went to see her.

"You guys want to go get a coffee or a smoothie or something?" Brooke asked. "I don't know how you can work in this office all day."

"Brooke, this office is huge!" I said.

"Still. Come on, guys, pleeease!"

Peyton and I laughed.

"Sure, we don't really have any work to do today anyway!"

* * *

On Saturday I waited in the reception area of the therapists' office for Haley to arrive. I really did not like these sessions one bit... albeit we'd only been to one, but I just hated it. It felt so awkward in that room, some stranger asking us questions about our life... that, plus the constant reminder while in there of the awful session I went to with my mom and dad when I was 16.

But if it was important to Haley, it was important to me. I wasn't going to whinge or moan or complain about them, because she wanted to do it. I mean, I was ready straightaway for whenever she asked me to move back in... but I knew she needed some time. Maybe these therapy sessions would speed that time up... I wasn't sure, but I would keep going as long as Haley wanted to. I'd do anything for her.

I looked up to find Haley and Jamie walk through the door into the reception area.

"Daddy!" Jamie exclaimed as he ran to sit on my lap.

"Hey, buddy! You looking forward to playing with a stapler for the next hour?"

"No."

Haley laughed. God, I missed her laugh. But the last time I saw her actually genuinely smiling was the night I started walking again, and that was a month ago. Sure, she smiled around Jamie and me... but there was never that full-on genuine smile that was just so Haley. The spark from her eyes was missing and all I wanted was to try and help her get that spark back.

We dropped Jamie off with the receptionist again, who had brought in some games for him to play with. Then Haley and I walked up the stairs to the therapist's room in silence. Even though it was a different building to the one my parents had gone to... it still gave me that same awkward vibe I felt when I was a teenager.

"Ah, Haley, Nathan," the therapist said as we walked in the door. "Good to see the two of you!"

"You too," Haley said.

I said nothing.

"So, Nathan, how have you been sleeping this week?"

"Oh, um, well the first few nights your advice didn't really work... The same thing happened."

"And after those few nights?" the therapist asked.

"Well, I still woke up panicky and knowing that something bad was happening to Haley and Jamie in my dream, but it wasn't as graphic and instead of happening like 3 times a night, it only happened once."

"Ah, I'm glad that it's getting better, Nathan. You're still at your brother Lucas's house, that correct?"

"Yep."

I glanced at Haley, and she was looking at the floor. She looked suddenly uncomfortable.

"And Haley? How has your sleep been this week?"

"Uh, fine actually, I don't wake up startled anymore, but..."

"But what?" the therapist asked. I was glad she asked, because I wanted to know what that "but" meant.

"Well, it just takes me a little while, to, uh..." she glanced quickly over at me, "...to get to sleep sometimes."

"And why do you think that is? Are you still haunted by the thought of Jamie being kidnapped?"

"Um... well that's more of a thought that goes through my mind when he's away from me at school, not when he's next to me in my bed. Sure I think about it sometimes, but... Yeah."

"So, why do you think you're having trouble getting to sleep?" she asked.

Haley looked rather uncomfortable with the persistent questioning.

"I... I don't know, it's just been like that the last few weeks."

"Well, there must be a reason. Are you worrying about things? Jamie? Your marriage? Your work?"

"Actually, it's not so much about me worrying as it is... I don't know."

"Haley," the therapist smiled, "I need to know in order to help. I understand that it can be difficult to open up to someone you don't really know, but I will help the best as I can."

Haley sighed, looked at me, then back at the therapist.

"I guess... it's just... since I asked Nathan to leave... I don't know. It feels weird not having him next to me." She didn't look at me as she spoke, but she might as well have been ripping my heart out. It killed me to think that she couldn't get to sleep at nights because I wasn't there for her.

"Ah. See, openness pays off sometimes! Now, before Nathan went to his brother's, could you get to sleep fine those nights?"

"Yep," Haley answered straightaway. "Well, after Nathan had started to recover from his back injury and depr-"

She looked at me.

"My jackass stage," I finished for her.

"His depression."

"Ah, I see. How long did that last? That you weren't sleeping in the same bed before Nathan recovered?"

"Four months."

"Right. Tell me about those four months, Nathan."

"I'm sorry, but why? How is that helping?"

"Nathan!" Haley looked at me.

"It's quite alright," the therapist said. "I'm asking, Nathan, because maybe you perhaps still feel haunted by that period of your life, or you're still carrying around the pain of that time, or that you're still feeling guilty about it. So talking about it may help get rid of that."

I sighed. I really didn't want to hash up the past... the past in which I had been a total ass to my wife and son.

"Well... I was a jerk. I... I didn't let Haley or Jamie or anyone in, and I didn't try with my physical therapy... I was just a total ass, and I'm sorry that I can't take any of that back... I feel terrible about it. But it's done, and I moved on." I really did not want to keep those months of my life in the forefront of my mind. They were already there, making me feel guilty every single day. I didn't want to talk about it.

"Okay, well that's good you want to move on from that Nathan. And Haley, how were those months for you?"

I really did not want to hear the answer to this question... Haley and I had talked about it after I started to recover and I did not want to hear it all again.

"It was... bad. It was really really awful for me, not only because he was shutting me out, but because it was confusing Jamie so much. And I hated seeing him in such a dark place."

"Haley, I'm so sorry-"

"Nathan, please don't." She looked at me with a soft smile. "We've had this conversation before... It's in the past. I'm not still carrying that around. I know how sorry you are." I could tell from the look in her eyes that she meant it. She had forgiven me and told me that it was all in the past about a month ago... but I still needed her to know just how sorry I was and that it would never, ever happen again.

"Well, I don't like to bring it up and make you feel awkward, especially if you've both already moved past it, but knowing about your recent relationship is what is going to help me help you. Now, tell me about your sex life."

That one caught me by surprise. I looked over at Haley, who started to blush and look down. It amazed me that, after all of the stuff we had done together, that sex was such a touchy subject for her to talk about with anyone else. It's part of what I loved about her, though. That innocence, that only seemed to dissolve when we were alone.

But not recently.

"What about it?" I asked.

"Well, firstly tell me about it before your accident."

I looked over at Haley, who was still looking extremely embarrassed. If we were in any other situation, I would have loved to make her answer these questions... but seeing as we were sitting in a therapist's office discussing the problems with our marriage, I didn't want to make her feel any more uncomfortable. It looked like it would have to be me answering these questions.

Even though I was no where near as shy as Haley when it came to discussing sex... I still didn't really know what to say, or what she wanted to know.

"Well... what do you mean?"

"Well, did you have a good sex life prior to your accident?"

I let out a nervous laugh.

"Yes."

I made a side glance to Haley to see her becoming even redder, fiddling with the cushion she was now holding.

The therapist chuckled.

"Right. And what about afterwards? After your recovery?"

"Um... we... we haven't, uh, done that. Yet. Since my accident."

"I see. Yet Haley still feels alone in bed... were you at all intimate since your recovery?"

I looked over at Haley, and it seriously looked like that cushion was going to be completely ruined by the end of the session.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, what was the most intimate the two of you got since your accident?"

"Uh... we, er, just kissed..."

"Ah, I see. So Haley, you simply miss Nathan's presence in your bed?"

I could tell she did not want to answer, because the answer was either no, which, not to toot my own horn, was an unlikely answer, or that she did miss me but didn't want to say so because that would pressure her to ask me to come home before she was ready.

"Well... yes, but..."

"I understand if you're not ready to have him home," the therapist said. "It takes time. The two of you have been through a lot, not only with this Carrie person but with Nathan's accident and your son going missing. How does Jamie feel about his dad not being at home?"

"Er... he misses him a lot, but he comes over every day, which he loves."

The rest of the session was spent talking about us being parents to Jamie and how he was dealing with things at the moment. It killed me to be away from him and Haley, but hearing her talk about how happy he was when I visited really did help me feel a bit better about it. When I went to bed at nights I just felt so lost and empty by not being at the house, so I had no idea how Jamie felt without his dad there... Knowing that he always looked forward to my visits let me know that he wasn't skulking around the house like I was. And hearing that Haley wasn't struggling to look after Jamie or anything also helped. And I'm pretty sure that me telling her how much I missed them and that my visits were all I looked forward to let her know just how prepared I was to come home.

* * *

As I lay in bed that night I just could not get to sleep. Again. Thoughts just continued to swirl through my brain about Jamie, Nathan and myself.

Why couldn't I just get over myself and let him home? I knew I could trust him, I knew he'd never slump into a depression ever again, and I knew he'd never, ever cheat on me. But... we still needed to talk. To know how the other one was feeling about certain things, to hear eachother's side of things, to break through whatever was holding us back so I could be comfortable letting him home. But the trouble with that, was that this 'breakthrough' would require a serious conversation, and I never liked them in the fear they would turn into an argument. I was still quite fragile with the whole situation and just hearing the wrong thing or simply feeling awkward about it would be enough for me to start bickering.

_Ughhh. _Why couldn't I just let him home? Every time I saw him, all I wanted to do was to have him kiss me, to make love to me, to hold me.

But Nathan... even though I loved him with all my heart and knew that he loved us... I didn't know what he wanted anymore. Sure, I knew he probably wanted to come home... but did he still want _me_? Was it just Jamie he was missing? Was he just missing living in his house? Just missing the kind of life with us he was simply used to? And if the answer to all of those questions was no, that he _did_ still love and miss me... did he want me like he used to? Did he feel what I felt whenever we saw eachother? Did he want to kiss me? We hadn't spent that much time alone together in the weeks prior to when I walked in that bathroom and saw... _her. _God, I hated her. Her, in the shower, naked, with my husband. I believed that Nathan was not being unfaithful.

But if that was true, did he find her attractive? I hadn't been naked in front of him for nearly five months when that happened, so what if... what if he enjoyed the fact she was swimming naked in our pool and showering with him? Maybe he did still love me, but just wasn't attracted to me anymore? I had subtly turned down anything too intimate in those weeks, so maybe he thought I wasn't attracted to him? That was extremely untrue, I just wasn't ready, but what if he thought that? What if he thought I didn't care about him that way anymore so he turned all his attention to Carrie? Enjoying seeing her naked wasn't infidelity... but it hurt. And he hadn't told me about her kissing him either. Did he secretly enjoy it? If I had just been home more, made more of an effort to fully reconnect with him... none of this would have happened. That stupid bitch wouldn't have come into our lives and try to tear our family apart.

The worst part of Carrie's mission to destroy us was the fact she had abducted Jamie. When I pictured her face after learning about her flirting with and kissing Nathan, I just wanted to punch her as hard as I could. But now... I wanted to kill her. She did not deserve to walk around, knowing what an evil bitch she was, with that stupid, innocent smile on her face. I just wanted to kick her repeatedly, causing her the kind of pain I felt in my heart that day. Every time I dropped Jamie off at school, fear overcame me until I picked him up, and even then I wouldn't let him leave my sight unless he was with Nathan. Who knew what Carrie was up to? If she had tried to kidnap him once, who was to say she wouldn't try it again? I knew that that part of my worries and pain would ease slightly over time, but I also felt that it would ease a lot quicker if Nathan were here, protecting the both of us.

* * *

As I laid on Lucas's couch, I still couldn't get to sleep. I figured I might get more of a comfortable sleep if I went to his bed, but it didn't matter. I knew it would take me just as long to doze off. Sleep never came easily these days, and when it did, I'd get nightmares that would just wake me up again. I decided that tonight I would just lie here until sleep overtook me, trying to block out all the thoughts that were buzzing around in my head. The thoughts that never seemed to escape my mind, but were most prominent at night. The thoughts of blaming myself, of missing my wife and son, and to add to that heartache, thoughts of my career. Or lack there of. It was the only thing in my life I had ever been passionate about, other than my family, and it had been taken away from me. Hell, both of those things had been taken away from me - I was freaking sleeping in my brother's house! Who wasn't even here. I was alone.

And I wasn't even sleeping. I knew that trying to block out thoughts wouldn't work. They usually swarmed around in my head until hours later when sleep would finally take over.

Basketball. It was my passion. It was my dream to be in the NBA. I could walk now, but after damaging my spine... there was extremely little chance that I'd be able to play basketball again, especially at professional level. I knew it was too late to be thinking in hindsight... I should have/could have/would have... What was done was done. I realised that as I came out of my depression. If you could even call it that. Looking back on those four months where I was a complete jerk, the reasons I have for wanting to take it back isn't so much for me... but for Haley and Jamie. I treated them horribly. In fact, I pretty much ignored them. I will regret that forever, but as I got better I realised that dwelling on those months instead of moving past them would only result in me feeling down about it. Of course I could have never done what I did again and ignored them for months and not tried with anything, but I could have remained stuck in the past and that would not have resulted in anything positive with my family. As much as I still regretted it, I couldn't keep thinking about it. All I wanted to do was make it up to Haley by being the best husband I could be. But I couldn't even do that now.

So even though I didn't want to stay stuck on that part of my life because I wanted to (try to) move on with my family... I still thought about basketball. Everyday. That was the thing that I couldn't push past. I didn't even want to try. Sure, I had hit a few free throws with Lucas a couple weeks ago before the bachelor/bachelorette party, but that wasn't me _trying_ to play. I was just doing what was something I could subconsciously do. But the thought of even trying to play basketball again scared me so much. Scared that I wouldn't be able to and that the knowledge of my basketball career being over being even more final than it was now, scared that if I could play I wouldn't be the best I could be, scared that if I played again I could get injured... But the thought of not playing again scared me even more.

But I justdidn't want to try. And so the cycle went... either way I looked at it, it was scary. And I didn't know what to do. I missed that feeling of walking onto the court and hearing the roars of the crowd, the feeling I got from playing, knowing that I was great at what I did. It was the only thing I'd ever been good at. Winning was the best part. The rush that surged through me when that happened was undescribable, and I never wanted it to end.

But it had.

I found myself getting up off the couch and putting my jeans, a hoodie and my trainers on and walked out the door of Lucas's house. My feet knew exactly where they were taking me. The night air was refreshing on my face... but I couldn't enjoy it. Going for a walk on nights like this should have been with Haley. I continued walking along, my hands in the pockets of my jumper, just feeling miserable.

I eventually reached the gym. The gym I had trained and played a bunch of games in when I was at high school. I loved this place. No matter what massive college gyms I'd played at, none of them compared to this one. This was the gym I felt comfortable in. This was the place where I realised that I really had what it takes to go all the way with this sport. Winning all those games here, the cheers of my classmates and everyone else who attended the game... it was one of the best feelings ever. This gym would always be the most special.

After walking around the area for a few minutes, I headed back to Lucas's. I felt a bit stupid for going to the gym... I'd been going every night for the past week when I couldn't get to sleep. It didn't really help anything, but it just reminded me of how much I loved the game, that no matter what happened in the future, I'd always have those memories.

But it still hurt knowing that I'd never get that rush of being on the court, playing the sport that I loved.

Helping Q and the Ravens was a plus though. As much as it made me feel jealous to see all these young guys with their lives ahead of them, possibly with careers in basketball being great at a sport that I could no longer play, I loved being able to pass on wisdom to them and help Q. The kid was an ass sometimes, but he had amazing talent, all he needed was some direction, and I wanted to do that for him. And for Haley.

Being in that gym felt good too. Even though I knew I could never play in there, it was a comfort, being there with two of my Ravens team-mates coaching a bunch of kids the game that we were all so passionate about. Seeing that State Champions banner in there still gave me chills.

Haley flashed in my mind. I was just walking into Lucas's house and I slammed the door as hard as I could. I was angry with myself. And at that moment it wasn't for any of the mistakes I'd made in the past or how I'd treated my family... in that moment I felt a surge of selfishness and guilt for spending even just small portions of my nights worrying about basketball.

Basketball was a huge part of my life, it was, and I would always miss it... but Haley wasn't just a part of my life... she _was _my life. My everything. Her and Jamie. And even though they were on my mind almost every minute of the day... I still felt bad for those twenty minutes I'd spent pouting about basketball. At the moment, I needed to focus on getting my marriage back on track.

But how the hell was I supposed to do that? Haley always seemed to avoid serious discussions other than when we were in the therapist's office, and those were only once a week. I couldn't take that. How was I supposed to tell her my side of things? I realised she must have felt completely insecure after the whole Carrie thing, and she needed to know the truth - I had no interest in that bitch whatsoever. She was a good nanny to Jamie at first, and I thought she was alright after she gave me a lift to the prison and told me she wouldn't lie to Haley... but then the flirting started. That's when I realised she was no good. But Jamie really liked her, so I thought that if I told her to stop the flirting then things would be fine. But of course not. And after she kissed me that night... I felt terrible. I wanted to tell Haley so badly but she had been through so much that I didn't want to pile things on her. Then when I did try to tell her, the stupid slut overheard and told us she was leaving. Even though I still felt terrible about keeping it from Haley, I thought that things would maybe be better this way... Carrie would be out of our lives and Haley wouldn't have to be hurt at all. Until she got in the shower with me. Damn it. I shudder everytime I think about it.

Haley and Jamie were my life. All I wanted was to go home and hold them both in my arms... It killed me to hear that Haley was struggling to sleep without me next to her. I was feeling the same way, but I never realised how much it would have bothered her, especially as she had Jamie.

That was another thing that I hated. Not having Jamie with me. I knew, of course, that Haley would protect him with all her might, but I still despised the fact that I wasn't there to protect him. Both of them. All I could do was hope and pray that Haley would be ready for me to come home as soon as possible, or at least ready to talk and get things out in the open.

I hoped that that day would be soon.

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	7. With Every Heartbeat

**A/N: **Heeey readers! I'm sorry it took me a while to update, I know I keep saying it won't be long and then it is, but I do have excuses. I was away for a few days last week, been not feeling 100% this week, aaaand I've had an idea buzzing around my head for the last few weeks for a **NEW **NH story! So when my head should have been dreaming up ideas for this chapter, it was going off into this new, AU-NH storyland I've got going on. I haven't started writing it yet, but when I do get it published, I hope you guys will take a look. Will obviously be a lot different to this one, since this is relating completely to the show and the one in my head is an AU, but I hope you guys would really like it!

Anyway. Enough of that, I've not even written it yet! (And don't worry, I won't let ideas/writing for this possible new story affect updating this one. Updates will be a lot quicker from now and on.)

Hope you guys enjoy this chapter, named after a song by Kleerup ft. Robyn. The next few chapters should hopefully be quite interesting, cause we're getting nearer the stage for when Nathan moves home! Yeeeey. So read, enjoy aaand... **REVIEW! **If you want. I think you should, cause everytime I see the e-mail telling me I have one I get very excited, then I read it and am like "Right, I need to add to this story!" :)

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I woke up the next day with Jamie tossing and turning around next to me. I sighed. It was 8am. I'd usually be up and getting ready for the day... but this was Sunday. Day of rest.

I knew I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep anyway, it always took me too long these days. Last night I just let all these stupid thoughts take over my mind. When you have nothing else to do but _think_, a whole variety of different (and ridiculous) thoughts creep in there. Of course I knew that Nathan wanted to be home because he missed us. Both of us. I _was_ of course important to him. Yesterday at the therapy session he had told me that the best part of his day was coming over here... that it was the only thing he had to look forward to. Seeing us.

It was the part of the day I looked most forward to as well. I mean, I loved spending loads of time with Jamie, but it just felt strange without Nathan being there. So seeing him was also the highlight of my day.

I really wanted him home. Not only because it felt strange without him... but because I knew it would feel so RIGHT with him here. I was so in love with him and I just wanted to have him hold me and talk to me and just be here. I knew that he was ready to come home as soon as I said that I was, but I still needed that breakthrough. I was still hurt by what had happened, and I needed to hear what Nathan had to say about it. That was when I would be fully ready.

At about 12 o'clock that same day as I was watching TV while Jamie played on the floor of the living room, the doorbell rang. Nathan usually called before he came, but I rushed over to the door to answer it anyway. It was always Jamie who did it, but since he didn't think his dad was coming over he remained content with his toys.

I opened the door, nervous but excited, as per usual, about seeing Nathan, to find Brooke and Peyton standing there.

"Oh, er, hey guys."

"Don't look so happy to see us, please!" Peyton teased.

I realised that my face must have fallen when I saw that Nathan wasn't the one I opened the door to.

"Sorry guys, come in!" I said, cheering up. Sure, they weren't Nathan, but they were my friends and were fantastic company. We walked through to the breakfast bar in the kitchen so that I could still keep an eye on Jamie as he played in the living room.

"So what's up with you?" Brooke asked.

"Not a lot, you know, just lazy Sunday..."

"No, I mean why were you so weird when you saw us at your doorstep? Is this a bad time?"

"No, no, not at all, I just thought you might be... er, so what brings you two around?"

They glanced at eachother, then at me.

"Thought we might be who?" Peyton asked.

"No one... I... I had no idea who it could be, that's why I was surprised." I didn't sound very convincing.

"Hales."

I sighed.

"I thought you might be Nathan."

"Aah, so that's what it is!"

"Haley, that's exactly why we came. You're always so great at helping us deal with all of our crap, but you never let us help you with yours," Brooke said softly.

"Crap?" I knew they meant well, but I got a bit defensive hearing her refer to Nathan as "crap".

"Just... you know... the way things are with Nathan."

"Yeah. Well... you're right. Things are crap. But I just don't think I wanna talk about it..."

"Haley, come on," Peyton said. "You can shun us away all you want, but we're not going to give up. You need to open up. Every time we bring up you, you avoid the subject like the plague. You deserve to have us to be there for you to talk to, whether we can help or not."

"Yeah," agreed Brooke. "We'll try our best to help, but if we can't... sometimes it just helps having someone there to vent to, so you can let stuff out. We know you have the therapist, but we are your friends and I hate the thought of you feeling like you're going through this alone."

Their kindness caught me off guard a bit. Of course I knew that they were wonderful friends, but hearing how much they wanted to help me... I realised they were right. I should let them in.

"Thank you, guys. That means a lot. You guys want to stay for lunch?"

"That'd be great," Brooke said. Peyton nodded in agreement.

"Cool, I'll fix us some sandwiches, I know what you guys like," I grinned.

As I was getting the bread and fillings all ready for the sandwiches, they started asking questions.

"How was therapy yesterday?" Brooke asked.

"Oh, um... fine." I looked up at them, and they were giving me very pointed looks, and I could tell that was not the kind of answer they were looking for. "Well, it was alright for the most part... I mean, we got a lot of stuff out and I realised Nathan really really misses me and I think... well I hope that I got across to Nathan that I miss him as well."

"What do you mean by 'for the most part'?" Peyton questioned.

I began tearing lettuce and washing it under the tap.

"Um... She asked us about... our... sex life."

"Oh."

"And?"

"Well... I mean, it was really awkward. I hate talking about that kinda stuff, you know? So I just left it up to Nathan to answer her. Still, it was weird."

"What kind of stuff did she ask?" Brooke asked.

I started chopping up the tomatoes into little slices.

"Just... I don't know, stuff."

"Haley, we realise you're uncomfortable talking about it, but we're your friends. Come on, it's sex, we've all done it! Nothing to be ashamed of missy!" Brooke said.

I felt my cheeks flush as red as the tomatoes I was chopping.

"Haley... Come on."

"She... asked us how it was before Nathan's accident." My face got hotter and hotter as I tried to focus all attention on the tomatoes.

"And what did you say?"

"Well... I told you, I didn't answer anything!"

"What did Nathan say?"

"He... said it was good."

In the beat of silence I could just tell they were smirking at eachother, making me feel insanely embarrassed.

"Well that's good."

"Yeah. Okay, so your sandwiches are ready!"

"Thanks Haley, but don't go trying to change the subject. We're here for you to talk to," Peyton said.

"Yeah, come on. That can't be all she asked about it?" Brooke said.

"No... She asked us how it had been since Nathan's recovery."

"Ah, right. Have you two even done... that since then?" Brooke asked.

I had deliberately taken a large bite of my sandwich so I wouldn't have to reply properly. I glanced down as I shook my head, pretending to be very interested in my plate.

"Right. So... you haven't had sex in... five months?"

I sighed and finished chewing my mouthful of sandwich. "Nearly six."

"Wow."

"Yeah, well, whatever, it's not like you two have gotten any recently," I said defensively.

"Woah woah woah, missy!" Brooke retorted. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"What, you... actually KISSED Owen?" Peyton teased.

"Guys, shut up! I'll have you know that Owen has been extremely busy at Tric lately-"

"Woah, don't blame Tric!" Peyton said teasingly.

Brooke laughed.

"ANYWAY, the point is, Peyton and I don't have husbands. Six months without sex is a really long time for that!"

"Yeah, I know, thanks Brooke."

"Well talk to us, let us help!"

"Guys, I love you, I really do... but the only thing I want you to help me with is just being my friends. The only thing that can fix this mess with me and Nathan is me, and I'm just not ready yet... I wish I was but I can't... I just can't bring myself... Ugh," I said, as tears began welling up. I tried to blink them away, because I didn't want Jamie to notice me crying.

"Aw, Haley," Peyton said as she and Brooke came round to my side of the counter and hugged me.

"Thanks you guys," I said, hugging them back. "God, I feel so stupid!" I laughed.

"Don't, Haley. You're not stupid, not at all."

"Uh, thanks. I'm sorry for being a bitch. I just... I miss him, but I don't want him to come home yet, but I do... and it's just really, really confusing."

"Aw, I'm sorry Tutor Girl," Brooke sighed. I wish we could do something to help."

"Yeah, if there's anything we can do, let us know okay?"

"Yeah." They let me go from their embrace and sat back down. "Guys... I need you to be honest with me when I ask you this..."

"What is it?"

"Do you... do you think I'm just being really bitchy and selfish with this whole Nathan thing?"

"Haley! Not at all!" they both exclaimed.

"Haley, listen to me. You are doing what you think is right for you and Jamie and Nathan, and pretty soon things will be great. Just cause it's taking you some time doesn't make you a bad person, okay?" Peyton assured me.

"Thanks, but... I don't know, it's just... Ugh. I don't know. I start feeling guilty about not letting him home, then I think, well, it was Nathan who wasn't honest with me. But then I start feeling guilty about not spending enough time with him back then. When I wasn't at work at school I'd be in the studio for hours, meanwhile Carrie was trying to cosy up to Nathan..."

"Hey, come on now, do not blame yourself for this!" Brooke said. "Do not feel guilty, there is absolutely no need. Carrie was just a psychotic little bitch who wanted Nathan for herself... and while Nathan should have told you about that... he didn't do anything with her, you know that. So don't feel guilty."

"Thanks Brooke. But... I still feel guilty, y'know? Like, Nathan didn't have a job other than two hours of basketball practice, and the rest of the day he was just at home. And it got me thinking that... that's what he has now. And before when he was here, even when I was working, he had Jamie, had Lucas to socialise with, had the pool for physical therapy... he had a home! And now he has none of those things. He has nothing to do all day. I mean, I know I'm not working right now, but I have you guys and Red Bedroom and Jamie... what does he have? Lucas's house? That's it!"

"Haley... you're thinking about this too much. Nathan's a big boy, I'm sure he finds things to do," Peyton said trying to reassure me, but I could tell that she was just saying what she thought I wanted to hear.

"Well, he might go for a run," I mentioned very unenthusiastically.

"What's wrong with a run?" Brooke asked.

"I'm just worried about his back," I replied. It was true. Everytime I saw him do anything that was in the slightest bit strenuous, I'd worry about his back and try and get him to stop whatever he was doing, whether it was going for a run or carrying Jamie.

"Ah, so things haven't completely changed," Peyton said with a smile.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you're still worried about him and moaning about him doing things that might hurt his back as if you're still... the way things used to be?" she said, getting a bit awkward towards the end of her statement.

We spent the rest of the afternoon chatting about this, that and the next thing before spending some time playing with Jamie, and they left just as Jamie and I sat down to dinner. We used to have Sunday roasts, but it just didn't seem right without Nathan there.

* * *

As I drove to the house on Tuesday night, I hoped and prayed that Haley would be ready to have some sort of conversation about our situation. The last few evenings I had visited after the latest therapy session had been great... after playing with Jamie we would talk for a while. But those conversations were all about Jamie, Dan, Lucas... never really about eachother. We'd talk about work, but that was really it. There was still that awkwardness hanging around us that we both knew that when the conversation was finished, I'd be leaving the house to go and sleep elsewhere. That, plus the fact that we were getting along great but knowing we still had much more important things to discuss.

I 100% understood why she needed time, but I couldn't help but find it a bit weird that she was quite prepared to have easygoing conversations with me where we'd laugh and get along great, but then I'd leave and sleep elsewhere, only to come back the next day after their dinner to do it all again. I just wanted to stay. They were my family and I wanted to be there for them, to protect them.

After I knocked on the door, I heard Jamie's little feet pattering quickly over to the door, making smile as it always did. I loved the fact he was as happy to see me as I was to see him.

"Daddy!" he yelped as he opened the door and jumped into my arms.

"Hey buddy! I said, walking into the house and closing the door. "Where am I taking you? Living room? Bedroom?"

"Outside! I'm playing basketball!" he said excitedly.

"Oooh, sounds good," I replied, laughing at my son's excitement.

I opened the door that led outside to find Haley sitting on one of the deck chairs with a magazine.

"Hey."

"Oh, hey!" she said with a smile. God that smile. So perfect. It had been making my heart thud for years, but now that we were kind of in limbo, it was amazing to see that I was still bringing out that smile.

"We're gonna play basketball, momma!"

"Alright, cool. Well I think I'm going to stay out here and read my magazine, it's a nice evening. That is, of course, if it's alright with you Mr?" she asked Jamie with a smile.

"Yep, that's okay momma!" he said as he ran over to get the ball and threw it to me.

We played around for a while, me helping him getting the ball into his four foot basket and throwing the ball around. Jamie had just made a shot when I glanced over at Haley to find her looking at us.

No, not us. _Me._ She was watching me.

That split second that our eyes locked had my heart rate picking up speed faster than it had in days and I fought, with difficulty, the urge to grin like an idiot at the fact she was looking at me.

I knew that for her, the sight of me playing with Jamie would make her happy, seeing as I'd missed out on doing that in those months when I was in the wheelchair and being a jerk... and the few times we had played after I recovered, Haley never had the chance to sit and watch and take it all in.

Jamie started looking pretty tired after a while, so I told him to go upstairs and get his pyjamas on and get ready for bed before I would come to tuck him in. I wanted a moment to talk to Haley.

"Hey," I said, sitting down on the deckchair next to her.

"Hey."

"Jamie's just getting dressed for bed right now... but Haley, I just want to tell you how much I admire how strong you're being through all this. And... that I'm sorry for putting us through it in the first place."

"Nathan..."

"I'm serious." I looked her right in the eye. "I want you to know how sorry I am for putting you through all this. You shouldn't _have_ to be strong, I'm meant to be protecting you, but I feel like I can't from this. Please just know that I wish that I could."

I saw tears filling up in her eyes, which just broke my heart. Only she had the ability to make me feel such empowered emotions.

"Please don't cry," I said, placing my finger on her cheek to wipe away her fallen tears.

At first she looked straight into my eyes, the way she often did before we kissed, and for a moment I thought she was going to. But after a split-second she swiftly brushed away my hand and stood up angrily. I just sat there on the deckchair, shocked that she had pushed me away.

"Hales..."

"Don't, Nathan."

"Don't what?"

"Don't... do that! You can't do that!" she said, her voice becoming louder and higher. "You can not just do that Nathan!"

"What, comfort you?"

"Yes!"

"What? Haley, you're my wife-"

"Yes, Nathan, but you know that I'm just not ready..."

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry. Haley. I am. But..."

"But what?" she snapped.

"I want to come home!"

"Well I want you to too!" she shouted out at me as though it was an obvious fact. She then realised what she had just said.

"You do?" I asked, stunned.

"I... Yes," she said, calming herself down. "I really do. But... just... not yet. I'm sorry..."

"Haley," I said, standing up. "The last thing I want you to feel is that you have to say sorry. You have nothing to be sorry for. Take your time... but please know, that whenever you're ready, I'll be here. For you, and Jamie."

"Yeah. Thanks," she said with a weak smile, getting rid of the tears in her eyes. "I, er... I should probably go tuck Jamie in."

"Hey, why do we have to keep doing it separately? I'm always here when it's his bed time, we can just do it together, like we used to. Unless, of course, you're not ready..."

She laughed softly at that last bit.

"Yeah, sure we can."

I opened the door back into the house for her before following her up to our bedroom. She turned around and smiled at me as we walked up the stairs.

Jamie was in our en-suite bathroom, brushing his teeth. He was such an adorable kid... it killed me that I couldn't be here all the time to watch over him.

As we walked into the bedroom his head spun around to face us.

"Momma! Daddy!" he quickly finished his teeth and ran over to me.

"Bedtime, buddy!" I said, picking him up and putting him on the bed. He scrambled under the covers in the middle of the bed, hinting for Haley and I to sit either side of him.

"What book you want tonight, baby?" Haley asked, looking at the small pile of books on her bedside table. "This one?" she held up one of his favourites, one with a tiger on the front of it.

"Yeah."

She began reading it to him as I held my arm around him and stroked his hair. Even though we all knew that things were no where near to being back to normal, it felt amazing to be sitting there, all three of us, so intimate and comfortable. I just wanted to stay here all night... well, forever.

When Haley finished the story Jamie was practically asleep, so we turned out the lights and went to the door. As Haley went to go downstairs, I stayed at the bedroom door for a minute, just to watch Jamie sleep. My son. He was so perfect, just like his mom. I didn't want to tear my eyes away... all I wanted was to protect him and Haley.

Haley turned and walked up to the doorway.

"Isn't he beautiful?" she whispered.

"Yeah. He been sleeping okay lately?"

"Yeah, he's been great. How about you?" she looked up at me.

I looked down at her.

"Better," I smiled.

"Good."

"I... should probably go," I said, reluctantly turning from the bedroom and down the stairs. Haley followed after me.

"Er, yeah." We reached the bottom of the staircase, and just as I was about to open the door, she spoke again. "Nathan... I meant what I said. I want you home. Soon. I know it's taking me a long time," she said, a soft smile gracing her face, "But if you just bear with me I know that I'll be ready soon."

That was pretty much all I needed to hear for a peaceful night's sleep.

"Thanks, Haley," I said as I left the house. Hopefully this would be one of the last times I would have to do that... leave.

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**Thanks for reading! Review :)**


	8. Electric Feel

**A/N: **First of all, a MASSIVE, massive thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter! You have no idea how much that meant to me. The morning after submitting chapter 7 I woke up to 11 new reviews! Now, I know there are probably lots of other authors on here who get a lot more than that overnight, but it's the first time I have ever gotten that many and it caused a huge smile to spread over my face. In the morning I thought: "I wonder if I'll have any reviews?" as I came onto the internet, thinking (or hoping) I'd maybe have one or two, not really thinking I'd be adding to the story that day. But when I had 11 positive reviews with people wanting more, plus more and more everytime I logged onto the internet, it really gave me motivation to write. And this is the chapter that resulted! After reading your reviews I was like "I HAVE to add to this story," and **sb1218**, I took your advice!

Anyway. I hope you like this chapter, another update will be coming soon! Chapter named after song by MGMT, but lately I've been loving the Katy Perry cover version!

**Review **if you'd like... I don't like to be one of those authors who are like REVIEW NOWWWW because I know a lot of people don't like to bother, but you've seen how they can affect me... this is the fastest I've ever written a chapter, and it's thanks to you guys!

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The next evening, after I had picked Jamie up from school, I sat down at my piano. Every time I had walked past the piano room in recent months I had resisted the urge to come in - what right did I have to come and play music like everything was hunky-dory when my husband was in a wheelchair? After he recovered, I had sat at the piano a few times in those weeks and played soft, short melodies, but I just felt like it would be selfish to play properly... it was my love of music that had driven us apart when we were so fragile all those years ago, and as stupid as it was to think like that - we were now older, wiser, and the situation was completely different - I couldn't help but be cautious in case the slightest thing could hurt us. And I had been right about that. But it wasn't music. It was Carrie.

I'd had all these lyrics and melodies in my head for weeks. Some relating to my own feelings, some inspired from simple things I'd seen, or read in books, seen out on the street, seen from other people.

But I hadn't written any of it down or played any of them. I realised now that that was stupid.

But even with that realisation, I still felt the need to keep the fact that I was at the piano a secret. If Peyton planned on asking me if I'd been playing, I'd tell her no... I didn't even let Jamie know. Which was a big step seeing as it killed me to be in a separate room from him, even if he was only tidying up in his bedroom upstairs.

I placed my fingers over the keys and did what I had longed to do for a while - played one of the melodies that had been going through my head for weeks. I even began humming along for a moment, but after a few seconds I stopped abruptly.

No.

It just didn't feel right. I could have as many songs in my head as was humanly possible, but I could not bring myself to play them. And now it wasn't because of guilt over my relationship with Nathan... it was because of my lack of a proper relationship with him.

It was how Brooke had explained it all those years ago...

No Nathan, no music.

I closed the cover over the piano. There was no use in even trying to play without feeling that proper connection to Nathan. I simply couldn't do it.

I folded my arms across the cover and just laid my head down. I knew that to be able to fully forgive Nathan I had to hear what he had to say about the whole thing, but I was reluctant to have that discussion. Not just because I was scared of yet another argument... but because the subject hurt me too much.

After a few minutes I heard Jamie coming down the stairs.

"Momma?"

"In here, sweetie!" I called.

He came through the door.

"My room's clean, now," he said, not looking to pleased.

"Well that's good, buddy! Didn't take you very long, super-Jamie," I said, scooping him up into my arms and sitting back down on the piano stool.

"Yeah."

"Baby, what's wrong? You weren't very smiley this morning either! What's up? School okay?"

"School was fine."

"Okay... so why so down in the dumps?"

"This morning when I woke up, daddy wasn't there."

My heart sank. Of course.

"Uh, sweetie... you know that he's not sleeping here right now. Why so sad today?"

"But last night, you both tucked me in like you used to and you were both in bed."

I sighed. It killed me that this was affecting Jamie so much.

"Jamie, I'm very sorry that you're sad about it, okay sweetie? I really am. But it's just..."

"What? Do you not want him home?"

"Jamie, listen to me." I tilted his head so he was looking up at me. "Your dad will be home soon. I want him home just as much as you."

"Then why can't he just come home now? He misses us!"

I wished I could find the right words to explain to him so he could understand. But he was four years old... what was I supposed to say?

"Sweetie, you're just too young to understand... but if you just wait a little bit longer, your dad will be home real soon, okay?"

"Okay. I just miss him."

_So do I_, I thought.

"Well he'll be here tonight, Jim-Jam! Like always!"

"Yeah."

"So, how was school?"

"It was good, it's Show and Tell next week."

"Ooh, exciting. What you gonna bring?"

"I was thinking... maybe Chester."

I smiled. He really did love that rabbit.

"Good idea, sweetie."

"Momma, are you singing?" he asked, now out of his grump and realising that we were sitting at the piano.

"Uh, no honey."

"Well are you playing the piano?"

"No... I was just, er, cleaning up."

"Oh. I like it when you sing." He looked up at me with a hopeful smile.

"Sorry, Jamie. Not today."

He sighed, slid off my lap and walked out of the room grumpily.

Why did this have to be so hard?

* * *

On Thursday evening after Jamie had opened the door to me and given me his usual excited greetings, we went into the living room to find Haley sitting on the floor with sheets of paper laying out in front of her, looking a bit stressed.

"Everything okay, Hales?"

She looked up at me in surprise, as if she hadn't realised I was here.

"Oh hey, yeah, it's fine..."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I'm good." She looked at me properly. "What about you? You look pretty beat!"

"Well," I put Jamie on the floor, "I led the drills at practice today, then went for a run afterwards."

"Why?" she asked, not looking too pleased.

"Well, because as good as it is to kinda coach Quentin and give the guys tips and going over plays with Skills and Luke when he's here, I hate not really being part of it, and since I'm not playing I figured... I'd just do some drills." She did not look happy one bit.

"Nathan... you shouldn't be pushing yourself! Especially when you're looking as tired as you are."

"Well I got up earlier than usual today as well."

"How early?"

"Like half five."

"You still sleeping okay?"

"Yeah, yeah I am, I just went... I just, wanted an early morning."

"At five thirty AM? Since when?" she asked, looking amused.

"If you must know, I went for a run."

Her face dropped again.

"So you've been for two runs today, plus those ridiculous drills at basketball practise? Nathan, come on, what about your back?"

I glanced over at Jamie, who was drawing a picture on the floor a little bit away from us, to make sure he wasn't hearing his mother's stern tone.

"Haley," I said, sitting down on the couch, "You have nothing to worry about. My back feels absolutely fine," I told her truthfully. "I'm just a little tired. Hey, if it makes you feel better, I won't do drills again for a while, okay?"

She smiled.

"Okay. Thank you."

"Now what's this?" I asked, looking down at what was laying in front of Haley on the floor.

"Ugh, just bills and stuff," she said, trying to be nonchalant.

"Okay... so why are you sitting with them all on the floor looking stressed?"

She sighed, picked up two of the bills and looked at them.

"I need to go back to work."

I was shocked. Surely things couldn't be that bad that she needed to go to work, which was something she clearly didn't want nor was ready to do?

"Haley, what's up? How bad are they?"

"They're not bad, it's just... There seems to be so many..."

"Well, we have enough money, right?"

She picked up one of the numerous bits of paper set in front of her and handed it to me. It was our most recent bank statement.

"Well... I haven't looked at the bills yet, but is this not plenty and more, Hales?"

"Well yeah, but... ugh, I don't know, Nathan. But we have expenses beyond electric and phone and insurance that isn't on paper here and I just can't seem to figure out what's going on! My brain is just, not functioning tonight."

"That's a first, _Tutor Girl,_" I told her with a laugh. "Since when can't you do math? Does it just not care?"

She smiled, and I knew it was because of her remembering what she'd said to me on our first tutoring session.

_"It's supposed to mean, you can work your whole 'I'm-Nathan-Scott-Mr-Bigshot scoring-my-touchdowns' on somebody else, because-"_

_"I don't even play football!"_

_"Whatever! The point is, at the end of the day, all your bluster and BS don't mean anything to math, cause math don't care and neither do I."_

"No, I just can't seem to focus. All I keep thinking is that I know that this would all be a lot easier if I just went back to work now, and it would save any worries about money."

"Haley, come on." I sat on the floor next to her, moving a couple of sheets of paper in the meantime so I could do so. "Do not feel like you have to do go back to work if you don't want to. Only go back when you're ready, okay? We have plenty of money, and I don't want you stressing. How's about I take a look at this, and you play with Jamie tonight."

"Nathan, you're tired, and-"

"Nope, nuh-uh, shh, I won't take no for an answer. Haley, come on," I said, standing up and trying to get her to as well. She reluctantly stood up and looked up at me.

"Okay. Thank you." She put her arms around me and squeezed tightly, and my arms automatically did the same to her. I nestled my face in her hair, which smelled and felt incredible as usual.

It was such a nice, tender moment. I didn't want it to end.

While we were still hugging and her face was in my chest, she mumbled:

"So you really think you're going to be able to do this maths?"

I had to laugh. I let her go a bit and looked down at her.

"Of course. I had the best tutor in the school," I said as we both smiled.

Then there was an awkward pause - a moment in which we both knew we ordinally would have kissed and ended up making love on the sofa.

"So, er," she said, shaking it off, "I'll go play with Jamie. I think I might just take him upstairs to save moving around toys... but if you want to stop doing all this, then feel free to join us, okay?"

"Okay," I smiled.

I sat down where Haley had been previously and started looking at all the bills in front of me as Haley and Jamie went upstairs to his bedroom. I sighed. Maths had never been my strong point... I honestly would have failed if it hadn't been for Haley.

And not just at maths.

I was so tired. But I was determined to help with this.

After a while it became clear that everything was fine. We had more than enough money in the bank, income had just stalled for a little while due to Haley's time off. But it didn't really matter, we still had plenty and more to pay for everything that needed to be.

But I knew that just telling Haley this wouldn't be enough to make her comfortable... she would need mathematical proof. It was just the way she was... I knew her, and I knew that she liked to know the facts before putting her mind to rest.

Which got me to thinking about our situation. She needed to hear what I had to say about Carrie... that I had no feelings for her whatsoever, and that I loved Haley with all my heart. She absolutely needed to hear that.

I tried not to let those thoughts cloud up my brain, because it was strained enough with all the numbers I was taking in and writing down. I would talk to her in the next couple of days... not tonight. I knew she needed to hear it, but not only was I exceptionally tired and not up for the discussion tonight, as selfish as that was, Haley probably would not have been prepared to have that discussion yet either.

After ages of me trying and failing in my ridiculously tired state to get the same answer everytime I did one of my sums, I glanced over at the breakfast bar in the kitchen and saw a calculator.

_A calculator. _God. The tiredness must have really been affecting me. After getting up and going to get the calculator, I sat on the couch with my messy bit of paper with the numbers and sums on it and tried to get an answer.

* * *

I had such a great night playing with Jamie. The kid never failed to make me laugh. He was perfect. After a long night playing with his dinosaur toys, he got pretty tired so I got him to bed and just watched him for a moment. He really was gorgeous. And tiny, in our massive double bed.

As much as I adored Jamie, the bed felt much emptier without Nathan in it. It was the same as how I'd felt in bed when Nathan had been in the wheelchair sleeping downstairs... empty. I missed him so much. But this time it wasn't Nathan who needed to make a choice so I could feel whole again... it was me.

I walked downstairs, expecting Nathan to either be working with the bills, or having given up and watching Sports Centre. I heard nothing when I got downstairs, and as I opened the door to the living room I saw Nathan lying there, sound asleep, on the couch. With a calculator wedged underneath him.

I couldn't help but smile at the sight.

And then I realised - the last time he slept on the couch, when he was in his wheelchair, I felt sad, and was probably crying or comforting Jamie.

Now I was smiling. Smiling at his beautiful form laying on the couch, breathing softly and rhythmically.

God, I loved him so much.

I fetched a blanket from the linen closet, so I could place it over him - I didn't want him waking up. He looked far too peaceful, which was something else I was happy about - I was worried he might be uncomfortable and twitchy and having nightmares like he had previously.

But he looked quite content.

I unfolded the blanket and placed it lightly over him. I couldn't resist but stroke his back a bit, during which I got that stunning electric feel that always coursed through my body every time I touched him.

"Night, Nathan," I whispered, kissing his cheek.

* * *

The next morning, I woke up with Jamie tossing around in his sleep. As usual.

But instead of groaning about it... I smiled.

Nathan was downstairs.

It had felt so good going to sleep last night knowing he was in the house. I had felt so at ease with everything, and it was the best sleep I'd had in a long while.

I got out of bed quietly, not wanting to wake Jamie, and made my way downstairs.

I opened the living room door as quietly as I could, making sure Nathan didn't stir with the light squeak it made, and tiptoed over to the couch. He was still looking as adorable as ever. He always looked so good when he was sleeping. So cute, so peaceful.

I rubbed his back lightly, giving him a small shake.

"Nathan."

"Mmm?" was all that came out of his mouth, as he stirred a little bit.

"Nathan."

He opened his eyes slowly, turning so he was on his back. He rubbed his eyes with both of his hands before properly taking in the daylight and his surroundings. He looked confused.

Then he saw me, and he smiled.

"Hey you," I smiled.

"Hey... Sorry, I didn't mean to fall asleep," he said softly, sitting up properly.

"No, it's okay," I smiled. "Don't be sorry. It felt... it felt kinda good to have you here."

Then it was his turn to smile, but I could tell he was fighting hard from letting his little smile spread into a huge grin.

"Really?"

"Yeah. I mean... I just had the best night's sleep I've had since... since you've been staying at Lucas's," I admitted, looking down.

"Well that's good. Me too, actually."

A comfortable silence surrounded us for a few moments as we smiled at eachother.

"Well... I thought I'd come down early so Jamie doesn't find you here and get too excited you're here only to be disappointed again," I said, having told Nathan the other evening how upset Jamie had been that morning.

"Yeah, good thinking," he said in agreement. He rubbed his face. "God, I must look terrible."

"Nope."

I smiled.

He laughed.

"Thanks for lying. Oh, um, about the bills, Haley, everything's going to be completely fine. I checked everything and we have enough plus plenty extra to pay for everything, you definitely do not need to worry about going back to work until you're fully ready, okay?"

"Okay. Thank you for doing that, Nathan," I said as I looked at the bit of the paper I could see wedged under his leg. I took it out from underneath. "Is this you caring about math?"

He chuckled.

"Yep."

"Why didn't you just use the calculator?"

"Well, after several failed attempts of writing it all down, since I knew you'd want proof in numbers of what I just told you, I remembered about that invention."

I couldn't help but laugh at that. That was just so typical of him... to forget the simplest little thing. A calculator.

"What are you like," I mused. "But still. Thank you for doing that for me."

"I'd do anything for you, you know that, Haley," he said, looking right into my eyes. I could feel my heart thudding in my chest, and that electricity soaring through me. He didn't even have to touch me for me to feel that... all it took was a look from those beautiful blue eyes.

"I know."

"Well, I should probably get going before Jamie comes downstairs," he said as he stood up, trying to straighten out his clothes.

"Hey, well my alarm won't go off for another fifteen minutes, I got woken up by my special alarm clock today... Jamie kicking me in the leg," I laughed.

"Ha, right. He's some kid. Was he okay yesterday?" he asked.

"Yeah, he never really brought it up again. He does miss you, though."

Nathan continued to look at me without saying anything.

"And... so do I. Nathan... just because I'm still not fully ready to have you home, please know that I absolutely loved having you in the house last night, and that it gave me the most peaceful night's sleep I've had in a long time. Give or take a few kicks from Jamie this morning."

He laughed at that part.

"And that I'll seriously be thinking about you coming home really soon."

"Thank you, Haley. But don't rush it, okay? As much as I want to be home, you feeling comfortable with things is more important to me."

That man had such a way with words. For what seemed like the hundredth time in the last few weeks, my eyes filled with tears.

"Haley... You okay?" he asked worriedly.

"Yeah," I said with a smile. "These aren't sad tears... I just... I don't know what they are. Thank you. Thanks for being so understanding."

"Hey, like I said," he started saying, as he put his jacket on, "Anything for you."

* * *

Later that day I had just been to lunch with Peyton and Brooke, and was driving home when I saw Nathan running on the other side of the road. He had stopped, and looked slightly out of breath, and was holding his back as though it was paining him. Panic gripped me right away.

I parked on the side of the road and ran over to him as quickly as I could.

"Nathan! You okay?"

"Hey, what are you doing here?"

"Stopping you from hurting yourself further, that's what I'm doing!" I exclaimed. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine!"

I could tell he wasn't really. He was panting more than he usually did when he exercised and I couldn't help but notice his hand on his back.

"Nathan, come on. Look at you. You're never usually this out of breath."

"I decided to go for a longer route today," he explained, taking deep breaths. He looked out the corner of his eye at all the cars driving past.

"Why?"

"Because... I wanted to challenge myself a bit."

"What about your back?"

"What about it?"

I gave him a pointed look.

"Look, come to the house so we can get an icepack or a heatpack or something on your back, it's clearly sore," I said, pulling his arm along with me.

"But I need to have a shower..."

"You can shower at the house, on come on."

We began walking in the direction of the car, and Nathan was still a bit conscious of the cars driving past.

"You're so embarrassing," he joked.

"I don't care," I said with a smile. "Now get in," I told him when we got to the car.

"Yes, mom."

I laughed.

I got in the car and began driving home.

"So Nathan, seriously. Your back. Is it okay? And don't lie to me."

"It's... it's a little achy right now, but that's just because I pushed myself too far, and possibly from all the stuff I did yesterday. I've been going around town once in my runs lately but today I was heading for twice... and it was a bad idea, okay?" he added, noticing my glare.

"Yeah, it was. Nathan, come on, you know you shouldn't be pushing it too hard. Promise me you won't try anything like that again until your back is in better shape?"

"I promise."

"Good," I said with a smile. "God, I really do feel like a mother right now." We walked in the door to the house. "Right, you go for your shower, and then I'll get something on your back."

"Sure," he replied as he walked upstairs.

It felt a bit strange having Nathan here in the daytime. It was always after dinner that he came these days.

And then I realised how stupid that was - it should not have felt strange for Nathan to be in his home at any time of day. Because this was _his _home, and it always would be. Having him sleep here the previous night and seeing him in the day time, which I never normally did, had me getting closer and closer to that feeling that I wanted him home as soon as possible. The only barrier that stood in my way was needing to hear what he had to say about everything. I hoped that the next day in therapy we'd be able to get some stuff out in the open, getting me closer to that point of being comfortable having him home.

After a few minutes of hunting for the heatpack for his back in the kitchen and having no luck, I decided to have a look upstairs in the bedroom. I knew it was around the house somewhere.

I had looked in a couple of the drawers without finding anything when the bathroom door opened behind me, and I turned to find Nathan standing there with a towel around his waist. His torso on full display, all toned, water droplets scattered over it, looking perfect.

As I tore my eyes away from his chest and brought them up to his face, he looked a bit confused.

"Hales, you okay?"

"Yeah, um, I was just looking for the... the, um..." The right word just would not come to me due to my lack of concentrational skills at that specific moment - it was all I could do not rip that towel off him and pull him onto the bed.

"The what?"

"The... um... for your back..."

"The heat pack?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, okay. Well I can look for it right now, after I get changed," he said, giving me a funny look.

This was when I realised I was just staring at him. His perfect, naked self. Well, I couldn't see everything, but there he was, just being perfect. Knowing that he'd be coming home soon was getting easier by the hour.

I shook myself out of it.

"Right! Right, you're getting changed, okay. Okay. Okay! So yeah, just, if you see the thing for your back then bring it downstairs," I managed to get out.

I sighed as I left the room. It had been a long time since I'd felt like that. As great as he was and amazing as he looked in the weeks after his recovery and before I asked him to leave, I had been very insecure about sex and wasn't really ready for that yet. I could feel that feeling falling away as well now. It was amazing how he could make me feel without even trying. And I was pretty positive that when I heard his side of things I would be one step closer to being comfortable letting him home. As long as I could get some things out in the open too, which I often found difficult.

* * *

I could tell that Haley hadn't exactly been expecting me to walk out of the shower with just a towel on, and that seeing me like that didn't really help her focus. Even though I knew she was embarrassed about it, I was still glad she'd responded that way. It let me know that she did in fact still feel like that around me. We hadn't sex in five and a half months and I hadn't exactly been the perfect husband during that time, so I had been unsure if her hesitancy to be intimate was because of her or because of me.

It also felt good to get dressed in my own bedroom. Even though I knew that it wasn't me properly being home, it still felt nice. Normal.

After getting dressed and rummaging around for a minute in the drawer to find the heat pack, I went downstairs.

"Found it." I tossed it to her to put in the microwave.

"Oh, hey," she greeted me with a smile as she saw me and caught the heat pack. She was sitting at the breakfast bar in the kitchen with the laptop in front of her. "How's your back feeling now?"

"It's good," I replied truthfully.

"Good. But I still think you should sit with that on it for a little while. Come on, to the couch," she said getting up and walking over to the living room.

I couldn't help but laugh at her. She was acting like such a mother... but that's part of what I loved about her. That natural mothering instinct she'd had ever since Jamie had been born, and she applied that to people other than her son. She cared so much about people and always did her best to help them.

I took the pack out of the microwave and followed her to the couch. I placed it at the bottom of my back and laid back.

"Better?" she asked.

"Better," I assured her. "Thank you."

"No problem. I was just on the internet and it says that light activity is fine after a back injury like yours... so just be careful, okay? No more pushing it?"

"Sure," I replied. "I'll take it easy at practise today."

"Yeah, you better," she said with a grin.

As we stayed there for the next twenty minutes and spoke, it just felt right. This is how things should have been all along. Us actually spending time with eachother, making eachother laugh, her opening up to me about being worried about my back, me reassuring her... instead of us just wondering what the other was thinking and worrying about how eachother was feeling about things.

"Right, I should probably get going if I want to make it to practice on time," I said as I noticed the time on the clock, standing up. "Thanks for this," I motioned, holding up the heat pack.

"No problem, did it help?"

"You helped."

Her cheeks began to fill with that familiar rosy blush that always graced her skin when she was embarrassed. It never failed to make me smile that after all these years, I could still have that effect on her.

"See you tonight?" she asked in a hopeful tone as I walked towards the door.

"Of course."

* * *

**Thanks for reading! Reviews make me happy. :]**


	9. Tender

**A/N:** Heeey everyone! In regards to the reviews for last chapter - I don't know how to convey to you how grateful I am. I signed onto the computer, thinking about reviews and how many I could have maybe gotten... I was actually like "10, I'll maybe have 10 e-mails, mostly reviews hopefully. Actually, no, 8 e-mails." And I had 27. **27 emails. **Most of which _were_ in fact reviews! Might seem like not a lot for some people, I don't know, but it's a LOT for me. And since then I've had more pretty much every time I came online! 4 new pages of reviews since the last chapter was published, and I'm now at over 100! So a huge, huge **thank you** to those of you who reviewed the story. It really brightens up my day to see people saying they think I'm a "great author" or whatever, because to be honest I've always sucked at creative writing! I've never really bothered trying with it much since a complete failure of a short story I wrote at school when I was like 12, haha. So thank Mark for creating Nathan and Haley, and me for filling in the gaps! Ha. It's great for me too because I keep thinking about things to add in later chapters, so I'm like "Oooh I can't wait to write that scene!" And I think it's cool for us NH fans to have something to put in all the gaps and lags in storyline we were faced with (like I've stated before, I'll continue after the four week period into the latter part of S5 and through S6 and possibly further).

This chapter is named after the song by Feeder, which played over one of my favourite Naley scenes, in 3x07 on their Boy Draft date when he gave her the purple flower! "Don't say I never gave you anything." Ah. So powerful. Anyway, I feel it's quite a fitting name for this chapter because in that scene Nathan was giving Haley hope, while still not fully letting her back in all the way, which is kind of what's going on here but flipped around. This chapter's pretty heavy on description of what went on in early season 5, but should hopefully give some good insight to both characters' feelings and actions!

**Review! **You know I love it!

* * *

After leaving Jamie with the receptionist and some toys from home, Nathan and I made our way to the therapist's office.

"Nathan, Haley, nice to see you," Miranda said as she welcomed us into the room.

We took our seats on the couch... still not sitting close to eachother. It seemed ridiculous - I had been hugging him recently - yet in here, in these surroundings in which we were talking about topics that hurt me, I just couldn't let myself be that close to him. It was stupid, but then again it was just my own personal defence mechanism.

"How have things been this week, Nathan?" Miranda asked.

He looked a bit uncomfortable being straight out asked the question, but he continued with an answer.

"Er, good, actually. But Jamie had a bit of trouble with it the other day."

"Trouble with what?"

"With... the fact I'm not staying at the house," he said uncomfortably, avoiding eye contact with both Miranda and myself.

We spoke to her for a few minutes about Jamie and how he was taking things, and she helped us understand that we weren't doing anything wrong in our approach - she just suggested that we shouldn't avoid the subject if he asked about it, because that would confuse him and send him into his moods.

Then the focus turned to us.

"Haley, I'd like you to tell me about how things have been since Nathan's recovery."

"Er... okay." I wasn't sure where to start. I knew this was going to involve a lot of re-hashing the past, which I didn't want for Nathan or myself, but I felt that it was important to let it out. "Well, when he starting putting effort into physical therapy and spending time with Jamie again and helping me out with a student and, erm, cutting his hair," I said with a grin, "I was really proud of him. I was so pleased. I felt like things were finally getting back on track. And there was this one day, where I was putting his trophies back up in the trophy cabinet," I remembered fondly, "And we... we shared this kiss," I said, slightly embarrassed, "for the first time in months. It was amazing. Just letting him know that after all of it I still believed in us making it work."

Nathan was listening intently the entire time I was speaking.

"And then what?" the therapist asked. "The nanny?"

I saw Nathan raise his eyes to the ceiling, looking annoyed at the mention of her.

"Well... sort of. Jamie started getting really close to her, and it just made me feel quite bad because I felt like I wasn't being a good enough mother now that I'd started my new job," I admitted.

"Haley, did you really feel like that?" Nathan asked me, shocked.

"Well... yeah," I said. "I couldn't help it. And then I saw you playing with Jamie and Carrie in the pool that day that you were throwing them in the water, and I just... I felt really insecure. And I don't know why, but... from the outside it looked like you three were the family, not me-"

"Haley, I cannot believe you felt that way," Nathan said sincerely. He looked genuinely shocked and... hurt. Hurt that I had been hurt. "I am so, so sorry you felt that way, I never..."

"Don't apologise," I told him. "It was my own fault. After I found a picture Jamie drew that I thought was of him and me but was actually of him and Carrie, this idea started clawing at my mind that he liked spending time with her more than he did me so when I saw you three in the pool, I just... I don't know."

"So you had seen your son and husband spend time together without you, causing you to feel uncomfortable. I understand that must have been hard, Haley, but I wouldn't say you're at 'fault'," she said with added finger quotes. "It was simply the way you felt. Now. So you told me last week that the two of you haven't had sex since the accident, correct? What do you think the cause of that was, Haley? Identification is the first step to recovery after all."

_Oh God,_ I thought. I knew this was all on me... and that speaking about it wasn't exactly going to be an easy few moments.

"Well, it was because of me," I stated. Nathan looked at me, confused, but I continued on. "The four months of Nathan shutting me out really hurt me, and most times when I tried to have a conversation he... he would just get angry." Nathan closed his eyes, looking so upset to be hearing this. I didn't like bringing this up since we had already moved past those four months weeks ago, but it was a part of my reason for refraining from intimacy. "So I started trying less and less, because even though it hurt to not be properly connected to him, it hurt more to hear him yell not only because he was angry and not wanting to talk about it, but because in those shouts and yells I could hear the pain he was going through himself."

"So you feel that going through those four months meant it would take you a long while to be close to Nathan again?" Miranda asked.

"Well... not exactly. Kind of. I mean, it took me that little while to even kiss Nathan again after everything, and it was because I had put up this wall around me... around my heart. After Nathan recovered and we started talking and connecting again, that wall began to fall away a bit... the wall that didn't want me to get too intimate in case I got hurt again, the way I did when I tried to talk to Nathan during those months and got shot down." I hated saying this around Nathan, but it was the truth. "And so when that wall broke away a little bit, we kissed, making it come down even further. All these great things were happening that were making me more and more comfortable and causing that wall to come come further and further down so I could feel at ease with Nathan, you know, getting things back to normal."

"So what kept that wall up for so long, Haley?" she questioned.

"Um, well seeing that drawing of Carrie and the three of them playing in the pool made me a bit wary of everything, but Nathan and I were doing so well with getting past recent stuff that I kind of got over that for a while. And this one night, after Nathan had started walking again, we went to Tric where the artist from the label I work at was performing. That night I was prepared to be fully intimate with Nathan... you know," I said embarrassedly, feeling myself blush.

"You were prepared to have sex with him again?" she added, trying to make it easier for me.

"Yeah. I'd gotten to a place where I felt like things were really, really great with us and that I didn't have to worry about being hurt or anything. I even told Nathan that I was ready that night. And the fact he was sitting with Carrie didn't bother me at all, because I mean, of course, she was the nanny of his son. But when we were still at the club, some jackass who I fired from a band turned up and started hitting on me, and Nathan shoved him and nearly had a fight with him," I told her, absolutely hating that memory. "I stopped him, but it didn't stop the fact that Nathan had made a mistake... one that had hurt me. He had only just started walking again and it was his first time in a bar since the accident... as soon as he did that that night the wall that had come down started building itself back up a bit, meaning I wasn't ready to be fully intimate again. And I felt insecure and guilty for some reason, like I shouldn't have been with Mia all night and with Nathan instead so he maybe wouldn't have started that fight. I didn't feel like I could risk letting myself be so comfortable with him only for him to mess up again."

"And I did," he sighed. "Haley, I am so, so sorry. I hate the fact that you had to guard yourself from me, and the fact that it was my that made you felt like that!" he said, as though the thought really did pain him.

I tried not to let any tears spill.

"Yeah, I know," I replied with a weak smile. "But you don't have to keep apologising."

"So what happened after that night, Haley?"

"Well... I was mad at him for a few hours. But we got to talking, and things were okay again. But this wall had built up enough for me to still not want to get too close, too comfortable. So things with us were fine for the next couple of days. I was at the studio a lot, but when I was home, things were good. Well, I thought they were," I started, tears welling up.

"You thought?" the therapist asked.

It was getting a bit more difficult to control the tears as the memory of this moment came to the front and centre of my mind.

"It was after the first Ravens game of the season. We had won, but Nathan and I went home separately because I'd gotten stuck in the school library for hours. Anyway, I felt that night that I was fully ready. Ready to get properly close to him again. It had taken a few days since the last time I'd felt that, but it didn't matter, those walls just seemed to vanish. I wanted to and was ready to fully connect with Nathan and have things back to the way they used to be. And when I called Nathan he told me he was going for a shower. But..." I fought back the tears. "When I got home, I opened the bathroom door, ready to show Nathan how I felt and..." I could hold them back no longer. I just let them spill down my cheeks. "And Carrie was... in the shower with Nathan," I told her. "That... that was when the walls went shooting right back up. As high as they were the first time, after his accident." I wiped the tears from my eyes and face.

"And then what?" Miranda asked. "Is that the night you asked Nathan to leave?"

"No. Well, yeah, I told him to get out, but I was just so appalled and I had no idea what to think. I mean, seeing that... I just... Yeah. And when he came by the next day, when he told me that there was absolutely nothing going on and that it was all in Carrie's head I told him that... that there had better not be anything more. He said there wasn't.

"Later that day, Carrie came by to get her stuff and she told me that Nathan loved her and that he kissed her... I knew the first part was complete BS but I was a bit hesitant about the second part, but I didn't really believe her. My trust in her had vanished completely when I walked into that bathroom.

"Then later that night when Nathan came over... I told him Carrie said that he had kissed her. And he didn't deny it. So I asked him if he did, and he told me that... that she had kissed him." I tried to hold back any further tears. "I just could not believe it, that he'd been keeping this from me... I thought we had been making a breakthrough, but we clearly weren't.

"And then Jamie fell in the pool, and once Nathan had pulled him out my emotions were at such a peak... I had just found out that my husband had been keeping things about Carrie from me, so I was really, really angry about that, especially since he'd said there was nothing more. And then I had just seen my son face-down in the pool because of the fact we had been arguing instead of paying attention to him," I said, tears spilling softly again. "And I told him I wanted a divorce."

"Did you really want a divorce?" she asked. Nathan remained silent.

"No," I stated simply. "I could never imagine my life without Nathan," I said, looking over at him. "But I didn't even think about it beforehand. It wasn't like I thought, 'Right, I want to divorce Nathan' before I said it. But as I said, my emotions were at such a high peak and I just wanted Nathan away from me because my main priority at that moment was Jamie, and I blamed both Nathan _and_ myself for that. We should have been watching him. But yeah, I just wanted to be away from Nathan. I really don't have an excuse for saying it, but that's what I felt."

"So you really didn't mean it?" Nathan asked.

"Of course not," I admitted.

At that moment I remembered the second day of senior year - that evening Nathan had told me he had looked into a divorce. My heart had broken at the thought. But that didn't stop me from believing in us... and I knew how Nathan must have felt now, knowing that I never really meant it. I had felt that during those weeks we were apart at the start of senior year - the day after Nathan had mentioned divorce, he walked me to class so I wouldn't have to face those horrible, bullying girls alone. And he had revealed on prom night that what he had written on that piece of paper on our Boy Draft date was that he predicted we would be together again. I was glad Nathan could feel that now, that sense that not everything was as bad as it had felt at one point.

"And when did you first talk after that?"

I realised that all she ever seemed to do was ask questions. But this was definitely a good thing, as it was really helping. Without her asking these questions, I wouldn't have gotten all of this out in the open. As much as it hurt for the moment as I remembered and spoke the words, it felt so much better afterwards to have gotten it all out in the open, instead of bottling it all up. Nathan and I would have gotten to that point eventually, but having the therapist ask us all these questions definitely got us there a lot quicker.

"It was a week afterwards, at a bachelor/bachelorette party our friends had organised so that we'd have to talk," I smiled. So typical of Lucas. "And we did. It didn't really help with things, though," I admitted. "But in the past couple of weeks, after Jamie's kidnapping and everything, we've been seeing eachother everyday and things have being going a lot, lot better."

"I'm glad to hear it," she smiled. "And we will talk about where things will go from here. But before we do, I want to ask you some things Nathan. I take it you haven't really had the chance to talk to Haley about what happened with Carrie properly, is that correct?"

"Er, yeah," Nathan mumbled.

"Right, so Nathan, tell me about it. Right from the beginning."

He sighed. I was nervous. This is what I had been wanting for weeks - to hear Nathan's side of things.

"After I recovered, I still felt terrible about everything. All I wanted was for Haley to be happy again, and I just wanted things to go back to the way they were before. But Haley being happy was my first priority, so even though I wanted to move things forward a bit faster than her, I was willing to wait till she was ready."

"That's good, Nathan," Miranda commented.

"What about Carrie?" I asked without looking at him.

He sighed.

"Haley, you honestly have to believe me when I say I had no feelings for her, whatsoever." And I did believe him. But I wanted to hear more. "The day she started flirting with me was that same day we were all in the pool... she just said some kind of inappropriate things. And you heard her at the dinner table that night that Lucas and Lindsay were over, she wasn't exactly being subtle with some of her comments. And I realise that you knowing she was flirting with me is hurting you, but it pissed me off too. I tried to just ignore it at first, because it seemed harmless." He was still looking at me, making sure I was taking in what he said. "And that night when you asked me to check the balcony for cl-" he let out a small smile - "for b...irds." He decided to replace the word "clowns" with that, which I smiled at. "...She was swimming naked in the pool. I mean, I was just so shocked that I kept looking for a second. But I was repulsed, Haley. Believe that. I could not believe this woman had the cheek to swim naked in our pool with no clothes on the same day you told her it was inappropriate to wear a bikini. But I was also just really, really disappointed in Carrie, because she was so great to Jamie back then and she had seemed really nice before the flirting thing started. But then that night we were all at Tric, she was drinking a lot and was being inappropriate again. It was kind of annoying but since she was drinking I just passed it off as her being stupid... I knew that if I took it as serious I would have to fire her, but I knew how much Jamie liked her."

"So you decided not to take it seriously in case you'd have to fire her?" I asked.

"No. I mean... I didn't want to have to make a big deal out of it, especially since it really did seem like nothing. She was being inappropriate while drinking, so I just let it go. It's not like I was flirting back."

"You weren't?"

"No. I mean, I was talking to her like I would anyone, but I wasn't flirting. I'm pretty sure she thought I was, though."

"Why would she think you were if you weren't?" I questioned, not understanding what he was trying to say.

"Well Q had ordered a shot, but when Lucas asked him about it I didn't want Q in trouble so I said it was mine. And when Carrie came over I just gave the drink to her, which she thought I bought for her."

"And you didn't set her straight?"

"I did, I said I didn't buy it for her, but she just assumed I did. And then later on when I saw that dick Jason that I knew you hated - and so I hated - about to steal my seat at the bar, I stopped him. And I'm pretty sure Carrie thought it was because I didn't want him sitting with her, and that I was jealous. Which I of course wasn't," he added. "And truthfully, yeah, I didn't really want our Nanny to be hooking up with some arrogant jackass that we both didn't like."

"And so you decided not to tell Haley about the flirting because you thought it didn't mean anything?" Miranda asked him.

"Yes. I told Carrie that night that she should not have been swimming naked in the pool, and she pretended she didn't know I saw. She actually thought I was watching." He actually did a small shiver at that point, which made me smile even though I was being taken back to this period of time which I hated thinking about. "And the day after we'd been at Tric I told her that all the flirting and inappropriateness had to stop right away."

I nodded. "But what about the kiss?"

His eyes raised upward and he sighed. "It was... it was that night, actually. The night after we'd all been at Tric. You were at the studio and Jamie had been painting all evening. After I put Jamie to bed, Carrie..." he sighed again. "Carrie told me I had paint on my eyelids, so I closed them, waiting for her to point out where it was or to wipe it off or whatever, but when my eyes were closed, she... kissed me."

I blinked, causing a tear to fall down my cheek. Even though I knew about her kissing him, hearing about it still hurt. But knowing the circumstances, that it wasn't him kissing her, while still horrible to think about... It caused me comfort knowing that Nathan definitely was not expecting her to kiss him. That feeling of being so unsure about everything was falling away.

"Well did you push her away?" I asked.

"Well... no. It wasn't like that. I was standing there with my eyes closed and her lips just touched mine, then she walked away. I was going to say something to her, but I was just gobsmacked. And, I am not just saying this, but it was horrible. The feeling I got when she kissed me was strange, horrible and really, really cold." He looked into my eyes to make sure I knew that it was the truth. And I did. "And for the whole rest of the evening I felt so, so terrible. I stayed away from Carrie and just waited for you to come home so I could tell you - I just really wanted to be honest with you. But when you did get home and we talked about Lucas and Peyton, you said some things were better left as secrets, which got me thinking that if you thought it was better for Lindsey not to know and for her and Luke to just move on and still be happy, then that was maybe what I should do for us. And I know that that was a stupid, stupid thing to do. But I just hated the thought of telling you and hurting you."

I had always known that it had never been reciprocated, because I could just never believe that Nathan would do that. But it was not knowing the circumstances and how he felt about it and how he reacted and what happened after it that had been killing me, but knowing now that her kissing him was beyond his control made me feel so much better. It's not that I had really believed that Nathan had kissed her back at all, but it was my uncertainty of the situtation that had been upsetting me. My protective wall was breaking away bit by bit.

But it couldn't come down any further without knowing or understanding why he hadn't been honest with me about it.

"Right... You really should have told me, Nathan. We wouldn't have to have gone through all this if-"

"I know. I know," he said, extreme regret coming over his face. "And so, the next evening, before the game, when I came into our room, you remember me wanting to tell you something?"

I thought back. And I remembered. I was getting ready in front of the mirror when Nathan came up behind me, looking really worried, saying he needed to tell me something.

"Yeah, I remember."

"How I wanted to tell you something about Carrie?"

"Yeah..." This was all coming back to me now. I hadn't really thought about it since.

"I was going to tell you. I was going to tell you then that Carrie had kissed me." And then I got that feeling again. That feeling that, even though he _should_ have told me outright, I could understand how he'd been feeling. He was going to tell me - he had even started telling me. "But she overheard what I was about to say and walked in and told us it was because she was giving us her two weeks notice. And after she came in I... I just didn't know what to do. I still wanted to tell you, but then we had to go to the game and I just felt so confused. And even though I really wanted to tell you, part of me felt that if she was going to be out of our lives since she was quitting then it might be a mistake to bring her up again."

"Nathan, I-"

"And I know that I should have. If I had just have told you then she would have been out of the house by the time we got home and she wouldn't have... Ugh."

"Gotten into the shower with you?" I asked, a slight edge to my voice.

He sighed.

"Haley... I'd just gotten home from the game, I thought you'd be home. But then you called saying you were on your way, and you knew I was going for a shower. And then you said... you said you loved me, so I was really happy and excited and..."

My mind stopped taking in his words for a moment. He had been excited because I had told him I loved him... did he think prior to that that I didn't love him?

"...and when I felt these hands sneak up on me in the shower I thought it was you... I mean I would normally be able to tell if it was really you, but that night I wanted it to be you so much because I just missed you so much and you knew I was in the shower so I didn't get her off me right away because I thought it was you..." His words were all strung together so quickly and I could tell he just wanted to get that memory out of his head as soon as possible, but still wanted me to understand how he'd felt. I could see the pain in his eyes at such a memory; such a mistake. "But then after a second I realised it was Carrie and she started telling me she loved me and that she thought I loved her, so I told her to get the hell out and that's... that's when you walked in."

And, at his words, yet again, I felt that stupid wall around my heart crumble a lot further. What had been so hard for me in the first place was the fact Nathan hadn't told me about what was going on and that I couldn't understand how all these things with Carrie had happened. But now that I knew that he had tried to tell me more than once and that the cirumstances were beyond his control and were all down to that stupid slut, it became easier to feel comfortable around him. I believed every single word he had just said, and even though I was a bit angry that he hadn't told me from the beginning about Carrie, I began feeling more and more willing to have him home. I really, really wanted him home.

We sat in silence for a moment as I mulled over my thoughts.

"Haley... please say something."

I looked at him.

"You really should have told me," I said honestly.

"I know, Haley, I am so sor-"

"But," I cut him off, "Getting all of that out in the open has really helped me. Letting you know how I felt about everything was good because I hate keeping things bottled up from you, and then hearing what you had to say about what had been making me feel horrible for weeks... which has actually now made me feel better because I know the circumstances and the fact that you were about to tell me. Everything is just so much clearer now."

"That's great, Haley," the therapist added. "Do you feel that by getting things out in the open today has made you feel any differently about your current situation than you did perhaps at the start of the session?"

"Yeah, I really do."

"And Nathan?"

"Yeah. I mean, I hate bringing that stuff up, but letting Haley know that I had absolutely no interest in Carrie or any say in whatever the hell she was up to has made me feel a lot better, because I hated the thought of her thinking anything different." He looked at me. "I am so sorry, Haley. I know I should have told you right from the beginning... but now you know. You know that I did not kiss her or let her in the shower or anything..."

"And did hearing things from Haley's perspective about that time help you Nathan?"

"Well, I hate hearing how bad she'd been feeling during that time, but it makes me so happy that she's felt comfortable enough to open up to me, and knowing what she went through makes it easier to understand how she's been feeling recently."

"And what about now, Haley? How do you feel after everything that's been said today?"

For the past few minutes, when Miranda had been speaking to us, I came to the conclusion in my head which I'd been waiting for for the past four weeks.

I now felt completely comfortable having Nathan home, at the house.

At _our_ house.

"I... Nathan." I looked at him. "Getting things out in the open has really helped me. I think... In fact, I know, that I've reached that point where I... I'm ready to have you home." A shocked smile graced his face. "But," I continued, "I... I'm just, not at that point yet where I feel comfortable being totally back to being... us, again."

"What do you mean?" he asked, still shocked at my revelation.

"Like... I'm not... I'm not ready to be... to have..." I felt myself blush. Why did I have to behave like a twelve year old whenever sex was brought up in front of people besides myself and Nathan? "I... I think it would be best if you maybe didn't sleep in our bed. Yet."

"Right." His face showed pure elation, with a mixture of shock. "Well Haley, that's okay, whenever you're ready... But are you sure you're comfortable with this?"

"Yes, I'm comfortable! You do want to come home don't you?"

He smiled. "Of course I do. I just want to make sure it's bcause it's what you want, not what you feel you should do."

"I do want it, Nathan. Just... don't expect things to go back to normal right away," I added sheepishly. I hated adding that part, but I needed to establish that to Nathan that I wasn't ready for full intimacy. There was still that tiny little bit of the wall that he needed to break down for that to happen.

"Haley, whatever it takes."

"I can't tell you how happy this makes me," Miranda said. I almost forgot she was there, as though it had just been me and Nathan in our own little world, having just made this breakthrough. Before, I had been afraid of taking down those walls in fear of needing to put them up again, but after everything today and in the past few weeks I knew there was no fear of that happening again. Miranda continued: "I can really see in the both of you that you'll deal with whatever comes your way and come through it together. It's really amazing to see."

We smiled at eachother.

"Now, it's nearly the end of the session, so Nathan, tell me some things you love about Haley."

"I love the way she's let me in just now. I love the fact she's so kind-hearted and nurturing... and I love that she wants me home," he said, smiling.

I couldn't help but smile back.

"And Haley? Some things you love about Nathan?"

"I... I love that even though I know how difficult it is for him to open up in front of other people, he does it anyway because he knows it's helping me. I love seeing the smile on his face everytime he's with Jamie... and I love... that he's coming home," I said, smiling as I played with my hands.

I looked up at him just as the beeper sounded, signalling the end of the session.

"Well, I'm sure we can all say that was a successful session!" Miranda said happily. "Now, for next week, that is assuming you'd still like another appointment, I'm actually out of town for the weekend. How's this coming Thursday? 1 o'clock?"

"Er, yeah, that'd be good," I said, taking the card she had just written on. "Thanks."

"Yeah, thanks," Nathan mumbled.

"See you Thursday then," she called as we walked out the door.

"So you want to tell him or will I?" I asked Nathan as we walked back to reception.

He didn't need to ask who or what I meant.

"Er... can I?"

"Sure," I smiled. I knew how excited Nathan would be to be able to tell Jamie something that they had both wanted for so long... and what I had wanted too.

"Hey buddy!" he said as we reached reception.

"Daddy!"

"Hey, er, I got something to tell you. C'mere."

"What is it?"

Nathan sat on one of the chairs in the reception area and pulled Jamie up onto his lap.

"I..." He looked up at me for reassurance. I could tell he didn't want to say anything to get Jamie's hopes up only for me to change my mind.

But there was no way that was going to happen. I was finally at that point at which I could be completely comfortable having Nathan living at the house again. He saw my nod of assurance. "I... I'm going to be moving back home!" he exclaimed, a huge smile on his face. You could have sworn that he was the excited child in this situation.

"Really?" Jamie asked, his voice full of hope, turning to look at both Nathan and myself.

"Really," Nathan replied, still grinning.

"Aw cool! I really missed you, daddy," he said, giving Nathan a hug.

Things were finally looking up.

* * *

**Thank you so much for reading! Please review and tell me what you think. :)**


	10. To Build A Home

**A/N: **Thank you everyone, again, for all of the reviews! You have no idea how much it inspires me.

This chapter's named after a song by the Cinematic Orchestra. Don't know it? YOU SHOULD. It's so good. It was on episode 7x06 of One Tree Hill as well!

**Review!**

* * *

"How come daddy didn't come with us?" Jamie asked as we pulled up into the driveway after the therapy session.

"Daddy went to your Uncle Lucas's to pick up his stuff, he'll be here soon," I smiled.

As we walked into the house, he continued to plague me with questions.

"When's he going to be home?"

"Er, I don't know honey, really soon."

"Will he take me to the rivercourt?"

"Uh, I don't know about that, sweetie."

"Well can we play basketball in the back garden?"

"I'm sure you can."

"Will I have to move back to my own bed?"

_Uh oh_, I thought. This would have to be when I explained to Jamie that things wouldn't immediately go back to the way things used to be.

"Uh, no, you don't have to do that."

"Why? Is daddy not coming back to bed?"

"Daddy, is, er... daddy's going to wait a little while before he comes back to bed."

"How come?"

I was really not in the mood to be answering these questions. It would be a lot easier with Nathan there for moral support.

"Sweetie, it doesn't matter. How about you think about what you want to do with your dad when he comes home?"

"Okay," he said, running upstairs.

I flopped down on the couch, rather exhausted from the therapy session.

The therapy session during which I had spent an hour sitting down. Yeah.

It was pretty emotional though... I had let so much out and learnt so much. But that was what had made me ready for this breakthrough.

Then it hit me. Nathan was coming home. In the next couple of minutes, he'd be here. Forever.

A rush of giddyness surged through my body, and a huge smile swept over my face. I felt similar to how I felt before we had tutoring sessions way back before we even started dating... when I was in my phase of being completely crushed out on him.

I remember feeling butterflies in my stomach everytime we had a tutoring session. It felt weird, because I sort of had the authority, being his tutor and all, but he was so popular and hot and breahtaking... it felt so strange, with me being such a nerd. In our tutoring sessions we spoke about so many different things. And it wasn't all about him. I mean, sure, we spoke about him and he opened up to me. I loved that. But he also asked questions about me and showed an interest in my life, which made me feel so special coming from this guy who was constantly on my mind.

It was different now obviously, having been together for more than five years, but those initial butterflies of knowing that something you wanted was about to happen, mixed in with the nervousness I felt, was the same.

I sat there on the couch, clutching a cushion to try and calm down my excitement, when I heard the door opening.

Nathan.

I got up from the couch and walked through to the hallway to see him coming through the door with his bag. I couldn't help but smile at the side. This was it. Nathan was home. I wouldn't have to miss him anymore.

He caught my eye as he set his bag down and smiled at me. I returned it, and made a start to rush towards him when I was interrupted by Jamie rushing down the stairs.

"Daddy!" Jamie ran into his arms. Nathan looked absolutely elated to be holding him.

"Hey, Jame."

"I'm so happy you're home," Jamie said excitedly, looking at his father.

"Me too, buddy."

"Can we play basketball out back daddy?"

"Sure we can," he replied. "Wanna go get your jersey?"

As Jamie ran upstairs to obey his father, he caught my eye. The moment where I was desperate to run straight to him had sort of passed, leaving us standing there looking at eachother.

"Hi," I said, slowly walking towards him.

"Hi," he whispered slowly when I was standing right in front of me, his eyes piercing through my own.

I leaned in and gave him a sort of awkward hug, but as soon as I felt his hands fall on the small of my back any awkwardness was forgotten, and I sank into him, squeezing him.

"I'm glad you're back," I whispered into his chest, with a smile on my face, squeezing harder.

"So am I."

I stepped back from our embrace and looked up at him. "You should probably go play with Jamie before he gets too excited," I told him, and he nodded, beginning to walk towards the back door. "And I'll make a start on deciding what to have for dinner!"

"Hey, um, I was thinking... why don't I make dinner tonight?"

"Oh, sure," I smiled. "Thanks. I get a night off!"

"You deserve it," he said, before turning to go outside.

Thank God he was home. I don't think I could have gone another night without him here.

* * *

After half an hour of playing outside with Jamie, I brought him inside to get changed back into his normal clothes so I could get started on dinner. I had no idea what I was going to make, but I knew that I had to do something for Haley. We weren't quite at that place where I could just hold her in my arms whenever I wanted, or kiss her or make love to her, but I could at least give her a night off from making dinner.

I'd spent the past few weeks at Lucas's making myself omelettes and scrambled eggs and crappy little stir-fries, but I wanted to make something special for her and Jamie.

I opened the cupboard and to locate a recipe book. I found a few and laid them on the counter and flicked through a couple pages of one, but it all looked far too incredibly complicated for me.

"Deciding on dinner?" Haley said from behind me, giving me a fright. I smiled.

"Hey, er... yeah. You got any preference?"

"Hmm, nope. But I doubt you're going to find a good dinner recipe in 'Baking for 4-year-olds'," she teased, nodding her head towards one of the books I'd taken out of the cupboard. I hadn't even noticed the name.

"Right."

"So whatcha gonna make?" she asked, coming over to the counter and opening one of the recipe books.

"I... don't know yet," I replied honestly.

"I'm sure it'll be great," she said with a smile, turning to go back to the living room.

Why did she have to be so perfect? Well, I knew the answer to that - she just was. But at a time where I had to keep my hands off of her... it was going to be difficult. But being in her presence was definitely a hell of a lot better than having to sleep in Lucas's house.

After watching her walk away, I came to a decision about what I was going to make. I put the recipe books away - I knew this recipe by heart. Hell, I'd helped make it thousands of times.

I got out what I needed for the sauce and got cooking, only for a few minutes later for Haley to walk in again.

"Decided then, I take it?"

"Yep," I replied, continuing to make the meal.

"So, what we having?"

"You'll see," I said, turning around with a smile.

"Nathan, don't give me that smirk!" she said, sitting down at the breakfast bar.

"Hey, I'm making your dinner so I can do what I want," I teased.

I continued preparing the sauce for a few minutes as she watched me. I tried not to turn and look at her in the fear of losing concentration.

"Want some help?" she asked after a few moments.

"Haley," I turned to her, "The whole point in me making this dinner is so I can do something for _you_."

"Yeah I know, but..." she looked towards the floor. "It might be fun."

She looked so innocent standing there. Like little girl who was just trying to get what she wanted. I couldn't not give in.

"Sure," I smiled. "Want to stir the sauce while I get something out the cupboard?"

"Yep, just..." she turned to look into the living room.

"Haley, Jamie's fine," I assured her. I was the same as her, not wanting him out of my sight - I hadn't been able to protect him for four weeks, and now I was home I did not want to have him away from us, other than when he was at school. I knew Haley well enough to know that she felt the same, and that even having him in a separate room, although in an open-plan area, was difficult.

"Right. Sorry," she said as she walked over to the stove. "I just..."

"I understand," I said with a sympathetic look. "Baby steps."

She began stirring the sauce as I got something out of one of the cupboards.

"Is this what I think it is?" she asked with a grin.

"Well what do you think it is?" I asked, as I retrieved the packet of macaroni out of the cupboard and waved it in front of her.

"Aw, Nathan, thank you!"

"Hey, it's the least I can do. Make my wife's favourite dinner. Even if it should be my four-year-old son's favourite meal instead," I teased as I put the macaroni in a pan and started the kettle boiling.

"Watch it," she said, pointing the wooden spoon she was using to stir sauce with at me. "He's almost five."

"Ah you're right, solid argument," I said. Then I thought about what she had said for a second. "I cannot believe he's almost five! That cannot be right."

"I'm afraid so," she said as she continued stirring the sauce. "It's crazy though. Like, can you believe it's been five years since I was pregnant with him? That's it's almost five years since we graduated?" She looked out the corner of her eye to make sure Jamie was still in her vision and that he was playing happily away.

"Nope. Feels like yesterday," I replied, thinking about Haley's pregnancy. I could remember exactly how I felt and what we did... every moment with Haley was memorable. It did not feel like five years ago.

"We are going to be the parents of a five-year-old!" she exclaimed, stopping stirring. "We're so old!"

"Hales, we had him in high school," I laughed, pouring the boiling water into a pan followed by the macaroni.

"I know, but still," she said. "I can't believe time has gone by so quickly since then."

"Hey, time flies when you're having fun," I said with a smile, mocking what Haley used to say when she was tutoring me but before we started dating.

"Nathan, don't make fun!" she laughed. "I was sixteen."

"Yeah, and I loved your little innocent flirting technique," I said with a smile, but being completely serious. I loved how she didn't feel the need to wear short skirts or tonnes of make-up or be overly flirtacious, like a lot of the other girls in our school were with boys.

She smiled shyly, continuing to stir the sauce as I leaned against the counter next to her, waiting for the macaroni to boil.

She lifted up a spoonfull of the sauce and held it up towards me.

"Time to test your cooking!"

"And your stirring," I added before she fed me a spoonfull. It felt nice, acting how we used to. Except knowing that while we were messing about I couldn't just hold her and kiss her. It was so tempting to just pick her up in my arms and kiss her all over, but I couldn't do that. I wasn't going to do anything she wasn't comfortable with. It was frustrating, to say the least, to know that I was going to be around this perfect woman, my wife, 24/7 and not be able to kiss her. But I would do it, for her. Whenever she was ready was when we would move forward.

* * *

After dinner, during which Jamie had amused us with tales of whatever his toys had been up to, I decided to go for a bath. It had been emotionally exhausting at the therapy session, but since then it had been_ such _a good day. Jamie had been ecstatic to have his dad home, and... so was I. Having him home was just like a huge pain-reliever. Things weren't awkward at all, and we could just talk and have fun like how things used to be.

It was killing me not to let him back in our bed... but I wasn't ready. I had to take each day as it came.

After soaking myself in the bath for what felt like hours, I got out and wrapped a towel around myself and walked into the bedroom. I got the fright of my life when I saw Nathan sitting there with Jamie on the bed, reading him a story. I had been so used to not having anyone else in the house to tuck Jamie in, nor did I ever usually go for my shower or bath when Jamie was still up and playing in his room for fear of leaving him unsupervised. And I certainly did not predict that Nathan would be sitting there as I walked in front of him with the least amount of clothes he'd seen me in in weeks.

"Oh, jeez, sorry!" I exclaimed as I realised they were there.

"It's alright," Nathan said as he quickly glanced up at me, before turning back to Jamie and their book.

He didn't even look at me. Well, he did, but he barely even made eye contact. I was standing there in a towel - a short towel - and he didn't even flinch. He went back to reading to our son. I walked over to the wardrobe to get my pyjamas, and still - nothing. I was looking at him to see if he'd look up, but he didn't.

"Uh, Jamie, I'll be out to tuck you in in a few minutes, okay baby?"

"Okay," he said.

Nathan looked at me that time, but it was still a quick one. At least I got a smile this time.

I didn't know what was wrong with me. Why was I feeling like this? Why was I wanting him to look at my body? To notice that I was in a towel, with a wet body and wet hair?

I went back into the bathroom, cleared the steam from the window, and took a look at myself. I let my towel fall to the floor. Maybe he just didn't find me sexy anymore? Maybe he didn't want me in that way now? He loved me, I knew that much, but what if that was it? He was moving home to be with his family, who he loves... but he didn't want an intimate relationship with his wife? Was that what was going on? After seeing Carrie naked had he decided that she had the kind of body he wanted? Had he seen me naked too many times to care anymore? Or had I rejected him too many times that he had given up bothering to even look at me?

Tears began rolling down my cheeks. Why did I always have to let these thoughts take over? It always happened when I was alone. We had been spending the afternoon and evening together and it had been great... but as soon as it was just me and something sparked a thought, it just spread throughout my head. And I knew that that thought would remain somewhere in my brain until I could actually get a proper answer from Nathan.

But there was no way I was asking him that. Things were finally going really well, I wasn't about to blurt out a question as to whether or not he still wanted me that way. Especially since I had laid down ground rules about not sleeping together yet. But that just made me even more mad at myself, because I could see myself being ready a lot sooner if I hadn't gotten that stupid thought into my head about Nathan not wanting me anymore. Instead of letting it happen naturally I was going to have to ask Nathan myself, which was something I certainly did not want to do, and that would take a lot of time for my courage to build up to ask such a stupid question.

I got dressed into my pyjamas, even though it was only eight o'clock. I usually had my shower after Jamie was in bed, so I wasn't really used to sitting up for a while afterwards. I pulled on my dressing gown and went back into the bedroom, where Nathan was finishing off reading Jamie his bedtime story. I could see that he was beginning to drift off.

I walked over to the side of the bed where he was sleeping.

"Night, buddy," I whispered as I kissed his head. "Sweet dreams."

"Night momma," he said quietly, clearly almost fast asleep.

"Night, James," Nathan said softly. He switched off the lamp on the nightstand and stood up.

I made my way downstairs, and heard Nathan coming down after me.

"That kid reminds me so much of you," he said as I walked into the living room.

"What makes you say that?" I asked, standing in the middle of the living room as I waited for his reply.

"Cause he's a genius," he said, sitting down. "Just like you." He smirked.

"I'd hardly say I'm a genius," I said, joining him on the couch.

"Well he's certainly got your brains."

"Well, I hope so, cause if he got your's we got a tough road ahead," I said with a smile.

"Hey, watch it!" he exclaimed, smacking my arm with the remote. "Want to watch anything?"

"Uh, sure." I took the remote from his hand. As nice as this was, I had a feeling things were just going to get weird. Before when we'd sit in front of the TV in the evenings, we'd be all snuggled up. Now... it was going to feel like it did in the therapy sessions. Awkward.

I switched on the TV and found some home makeover show. I always loved watching these, seeing the differences between before and after.

We sat back and watched it for half an hour, and when it finished Nathan spoke.

"Haley... Thank you."

"For what?" I looked at him.

"For letting me come home. I know how much I put you through and I'm so sorry for that, but knowing that you've still got that generosity in you, for me, is... It's amazing."

I smiled softly.

"Well, you're welcome, but it's not like I've done anything..."

"Haley, you have. After all this shit that I've put you through, you can still find it in your heart to let me home. And that's all down to your generosity."

"It's not all down to that, Nathan," I said, looking at him seriously.

"What do you mean?"

"I could be the most generous person in the world, but that's not why I told you to come home. It's because I _wanted_ you home. There's a difference."

"Are you sure? I mean, I don't want you to feel that you have to do it for me or Jamie or-"

"Nathan, stop it!" I laughed. "You're home because I want you here and you want to be here. That's all there is to it."

"Good," he said. "Just double-checking."

"Well, you don't have to do that anymore. I wouldn't have asked you to come home if I didn't want you to. But... you're okay with the whole, not... sleeping in the same bed thing, right? Just for a little while."

"Of course," he replied. "Anything to make you comfortable."

He looked like he meant it, but that little thought in the back of my mind was still banging about. Was he fine with it because he wanted me to be comfortable, or was it because he just didn't want me that way anymore? 95% of me believed it was the first reason, but that 5% niggling away was enough to worry me.

"Do you want to sleep in the guest bedroom or...?"

"Nah, I'll just sleep here," he said, gesturing towards the couch we were sitting on.

"Okay," I nodded.

"Haley - it's not going to be like last time. Me sleeping on the couch and everything..."

"No, I know," I reassured him. "I don't think that at all."

We spent the next couple hours watching stupid programmes on TV and discussing what was wrong with them, drinking hot chocolate and talking a little bit in the commercial breaks. Being in his presence made all paranoid thoughts slip out of my mind for the time being. Even with the obvious awkwardness of knowing that things weren't completely back to how they were supposed to be, it was so much fun just sitting there talking and laughing. We hadn't spent a night like this in ages.

After a while I began to feel tired.

"Right, that's it, I need bed," I yawed as I stood up.

"Good idea, I'm pretty tired as well," he replied.

I felt a bit weird walking upstairs and just leaving him there. Hopefully things would get easier as the week progressed.

"Night."

"Night, Hales."

* * *

The next morning I got up at around 10. It was a Sunday and Jamie didn't have school so I didn't want to wake him. He deserved a good lie-in.

I walked downstairs, not sure if Nathan would be up or not. I heard nothing as I approached the bottom of the stairs - I hoped he hadn't gone out for a run. That was all I needed on his first morning here - me worrying.

I opened the door to the living room, only to find him still fast asleep on the sofa. What was he like? I left him to it and went through to the kitchen to make us some breakfast.

After clattering around in the kitchen for a while, I realised Nathan wasn't waking up. I went back to the living room.

"Hey. Nathan! Wake up!" I whispered, giving him a small shove.

"Haley? What'sgoinon?"

"Breakfast, that's what. Come on, Sleepy."

He stretched out on the sofa, trying to wake himself up.

"What time is it?" he yawned.

"A little after ten," I replied, going back to the kitchen to finish up breakfast.

"Aw man, I didn't mean to sleep that long," he said, following me through.

We started eating breakfast and talking. I was so happy with the way things were going.

The phone rang.

"Could you get that?" I asked Nathan as I put our plates in the sink.

"Sure. Hello?"

I heard the unmistakable sound of Brooke Davis's voice coming through the phone line, even from six feet away. She sounded pretty excited.

"Er, yeah, I am," he said into the phone with a smile, looking up at me. With that, I knew exactly why Brooke was so excited. She realised that Nathan was back home. Yesterday I had been so excited myself to have him back that the thought never really occurred to me to call Peyton or Brooke.

"Here she is," Nathan said as he passed the phone over to me.

I thanked him, and held the phone up to my ear.

"Hey, Brooke!"

"Why didn't you tell me Nathan was home?" she demanded. Oh dear. This was probably a conversation that shouldn't be had in front of Nathan. I gave him the look that let him know I was taking the phonecall elsewhere.

"I'm sorry, I didn't get much of a chance yesterday," I said, walking through to the stairway.

"Well what happened? Haley, this is huge news. Are you guys like properly back together or what?"

"Okay, just listen. Yesterday at the session we got a lot of stuff out in the open that made me feel ready for him to come home. But we're not like... the way we used to be. Not yet, anyway."

"What do you mean by that?"

"We're not..." I looked up the stairs and around the corner just to ensure that Nathan or Jamie weren't around. "We're not _together, _together, if you know what I mean?"

"Aah, I see. Sex. It's cool, Hales, you'll be ready soon. You won't be able to keep your hands off him if you're going to be around him all the time," she joked.

"Yeah, well, we'll see about that."

"No Hales, come on. You two need to try and get back on track as soon as possible. You can't always wait for stuff, you have to make things happen for yourself! If we all sat around and waited for things to happen, life would be _extremely _dull."

"I know Brooke, but... I can't _make_ myself be ready."

"Then find out what it is that will help you get to that point sooner. Getting all that stuff out in the open at the session yesterday is what made you feel ready, right?"

"Right..."

"So, what is it that you think will make you feel more ready to go back to how things are supposed to be with you?"

"I don't know, I... I mean, there's some stuff I'd need to ask him, but it would be so awkward-"

"Haley, come on," Brooke continued down the phone, "If that's the case, then it's going to be awkward whenever it happens. Stalling it is only going to make the waiting harder."

"But Brooke... sometimes it's just easier to talk about that sort of stuff in the therapy sessions. The atmosphere is awkward in itself, which kind of helps me get stuff out. I don't think I could bring up something as awkward as that when we're just hanging out at home, in such a non-awkward environment-"

"Haley," she interrupted me. "I've got it! I've so got it!"

"Got what?"

"The solution to all of your problems? You need an atmosphere that's going to help you get rid of all the stuff that's on your chest, so that's exactly what I'm going to give you! And then you two can go back to the way you were."

"Brooke, it's not just that, it takes time too..."

"I realise that Haley." Her excited tone lowered a bit, into a more intimate, friendly voice. "I do. But even if my plan doesn't totally work out, at least it's something."

I sighed.

"Okay, what is this master plan?" I asked, whilst again making sure that Jamie or Nathan weren't anywhere near. I didn't need them listening in while I made a plan to get myself ready to have sex with Nathan. Nope, I did _not _need that just now!

"You two are going to have a date!"

I couldn't help but roll my eyes. What was Brooke like?

"Really, Brooke? That's your genius plan?"

"Yes! You can go out to dinner, or have it at your place, whatever. But Jamie can't be there."

"Are you serious with this, Brooke?"

"I am totally serious. Come on, Hales. What's the worst that can happen?"

"Er, it could be completely awkward!" I retorted. Imagining Nathan and me, just us two, sitting at a table with all candles and stuff set up to make it a romantic date... it would just be so awkward right now.

"That's half the point!" Brooke replied. "The atmosphere needs to be a little tense, seeing as that seems to be the only thing that gets you two to talk about serious issues."

She was actually right. As ridiculous as this idea was, she was making sense.

"So, are you in?"

I sighed.

"I'm in. But Nathan has to be too, okay?"

"Right, sure, sure. Right, so, would you rather have it at a restaurant or your place?"

"Er, the house I guess, since Ja-"

"Okay cool cool. Tell Nathan about it, and try not to dress too sloppy, both of you."

"Brooke, please don't go all-out with this, okay? Just something small."

"Haley, will you relax! I am the queen of setting Naley up on dates, for reference see first date EVER."

"Oh, right, remember how well that ended up!" I laughed.

"Hey, that was not my fault, that was Nathan's. And you were clearly having a good time because otherwise you wouldn't have made out with him the next day and then started daating and then gotten married and had a kid. So shh. I know what I'm doing. New Nathan/Haley beginnings are totally my forte!"

"I guess that's true."

"It's definitely true. Right, I'll be at your place at six-ish to prepare, that okay?"

I had to laugh. When she put her mind to something, there was no way she was changing it.

"Yep, sounds good," I said, before hanging up the phone. I sighed. How was I going to tell Nathan about this? _'Oh, by the way, I told Brooke that I need to ask you something before I'm ready to sleep with you so she's setting us up a date so I can ask you. Kay?' _

Nope. I walked through to the kitchen to find Nathan drying and putting away dishes.

"What did Brooke want?" he asked as I walked in. I realised that I had never actually gotten to the point of Brooke's phonecall.

"I, er... I don't know, actually."

"Pretty long phonecall," he smiled.

"Yeah, well, er... She wants... she wants to, er..." God, why did I agree to this? This was going to sound so lame! "She wants us to have a date," I finished. "Tonight. She reckons she's the queen of setting you and me up on dates so she wants to do it again."

Nathan smiled. Thank god. I loved him, but I don't think I could have handled an eye-roll.

"Fine by me," he replied. "Where at?"

"Er, here."

"Oh. Cool. So what, we're just going to have dinner. In our house."

I felt myself blush, although I wasn't sure why. This was Brooke's idea.

"Well, Brooke said she would come and 'set up' tonight, whatever that means," I said, using air quotes.

"Oh God, what the hell will that involve?"

At that moment, Jamie came bouncing down the stairs.

"Morning, baby," I greeted him.

"Morning!" he said, as Nathan lifted him up onto one of the stools at the breakfast bar.

"Want some bacon, Jimmy-Jam?"

"Yes, please!"

I just leaned against the door as I watched them. My heart swelled at the sight. It was similar to how I felt the night Nathan started to emotionally recover from his accident when he played basketball with Jamie, but now I was just filled with so much happiness. Sure, things weren't perfect yet, but the sight in front of me was pretty darn close to it.

It was five forty-five when the doorbell rang. I just knew it would be Brooke, here early.

When Nathan answered the door, Brooke smiled, made short greetings, and headed straight for the kitchen with a box.

I walked through from the living room to the hallway where Nathan had just closed the door.

"Did you see what was in the box?" I asked him.

"No," he said wearily, "Did you?"

"Nope. I don't know what the hell she is up to. I don't know if we're even allowed in the kitch-"

"That's right," she said, her head poking around the door. "You're not allowed in here. Now go get ready!"

"Ready how? Brooke, we're having dinner in our own house-"

"Guys, guys, guys," she cut me off. "What are you two like? You know what, fine, just wear your sloppy clothes, but it's you who's going to have to pay for it when you feel like a complete tool while you're sitting opposite your spouse like that when you're supposed to be on a date. A date designed by Brooke Davis, no less, so I would have expected you to be in your finest attire."

I looked at Nathan. He was wearing a white logo T-shirt and jeans, and I was wearing a red vest top with jeans. It was just our normal clothes!

"Brooke, I know you weren't there, but you realise that on our first date I was wearing my letterman jacket?" Nathan asked.

Brooke looked a little put-off.

"Oh."

"And Haley was wearing a denim jacket with a green and a red top underneath it. I mean, she looked great, but it was nothing fancy."

I just looked at Nathan. He had told me about all these things he remembered about us before, but hearing it just now, about an evening that had happened so long ago but was an important part of our history, was just amazing.

"Okay then, just wear what you're wearing, whatever. I need to get back to setting stuff up through here. Oh, and don't go in the living room either."

"Where are we supposed to go?" I asked her.

"Go upstairs and get Jamie ready," she said simply.

"Ready for where...?" Nathan asked.

"To come with me while you two are on your date!"

"Wait, Brooke-" Nathan and I both started.

"Listen, guys. I know you two don't want to have Jamie be with anyone else but the two of you, but... you're going to have to start sometime. I'm not going to take him out to the fair or anywhere public. See, I already thought about it! He's going to come to my house, it's not that far from here, and then we're going to bake cupcakes with Peyton, and then we'll come home before his bed time!"

"Brooke, it's a nice thought, but... I just don't think we're ready for that yet," I said. "I hate having him out of my sight as it is, and he's just on the other side of that door," I beckoned towards the living room. "But having him like ten blocks away? I don't think I can do that."

Nathan also looked uneasy about it.

Brooke sighed.

"I understand, guys."

"It's not that we don't trust you, Brooke, we just..." Nathan started.

"Guys, you don't have to say it. This just means a little adjustment to my plan. Now, I'm sure you both knew when you agreed to the date that Jamie wouldn't be in the vicinity, correct?"

"I guess so, yeah..."

"Okay, good. So Jamie and me will hang out upstairs in his room until your date is finished. Sound cool?"

Nathan and I looked at eachother, knowing without words that we were in agreement.

"Sure."

About fifteen minutes later, Brooke walked out of the kitchen with Jamie to where I was sitting in the piano room. She had made Nathan and I sit in separate rooms in the few minutes leading up to our date, so it would feel like a 'real date'.

"It's ready," she said, leading me out of the room to where Nathan was standing in the hallway. "Now. I've ordered a bunch of chinese food, to be delivered in five/ten minutes time, so that it feels like you're in a restaurant, getting your food served a little while after sitting down." Oh Brooke. Where did she come up with these things? I looked at Nathan and I could tell he was wondering the same thing. Right. We'll be upstairs. Just call if you need anything, but we won't come downstairs until the date finishes! Nighty-night, bye," she finished, bringing Jamie, who was loving all of this Brooke craziness, upstairs.

"Ready for this?" Nathan asked as he was about to open the door.

I gave a nervous smile as he opened the door. The lights in the kitchen, dining area and living room were all dimmed, with candles scattered everywhere. She had even added a vase of purple flowers to the dining table.

I took a deep breath as we walked forward. This was going to be awkward. I decided to save any further ridiculous awkwardness by pulling up my own chair, just in case Nathan offered to. I would have felt really strange if that had been the case.

"So, any idea why Brooke wanted to set this up?" he asked, taking a seat.

"Er, not... not really," I said. It wasn't a complete lie. I didn't know why she insisted so much on setting the whole thing up like this. It was so romantic, and I knew that if things had been the way they were supposed to be we would have just talked about how beautiful everything was, including eachother, and we'd talk and laugh and eat and end up making love on the sofa. But this was different. The atmosphere was beautiful, but deliberately awkward.

But trying to bring up something so serious, that was such a downer, in such a beautiful, romantic setting during which we would usually just have fun rather than worry about big issues, was going to be near impossible. I just didn't want to do it.

I noticed an envelope on the table that had '1' written on it.

"Oh God," Nathan said, lifting it up. "You want to read it?"

"You can do it," I replied. Things were already awkward. Sitting opposite eachother in such a romantic atmosphere was proving to be quite difficult.

He cleared his throat before reading the card.

"No wine for you two responsible parents tonight. You don't want to be inebriated while talking about whatever it is you're going to be talking about. But sit back, relax, and have fun with eachother. When the food arrives, open envelope number two."

"Right..." I said.

"Yeah. What does she mean what are we going to be talking about?"

"I don't know..." I said, my face blushing red.

"So, water?" he said, reaching out for the jug and pouring it into my glass.

"Thanks."

"So... when did Brooke say the food was getting here?"

* * *

**Thanks for reading! The rest of their date will be in the next chapter. Reviewww please! :]**


	11. Return To Me

**A/N: **Heeey guys! Apologies for the delay, but the day I posted the latest chapter was the day I went away for a week, and since I've been back I've had to add in writing this chapter to lots of schoolwork and other random stuff. Buuut, better late than never! It's not as long as the past few, so I'm sorry, but it's something. The next few will be long (and good... ;) haha).

About chapter 10, apologies for the typing errors. I literally was quickly finishing up the chapter the morning before school before I went away that afternoon, so I couldn't proof-read it, but I wanted the chapter up for you guys before I went away. Thanks for the reviews, you have no idea how much they make me smile! And I'm serious about To Build A Home by The Cinematic Orchestra - SUCH a good song. Get it.

This chapter is named after a song by Matthew Ryan, it plays at the end of ep 1x04. It's also in 2x11. This chapter has a lot of flashback in it.

Sometimes it bothers me that I write this story in first person because it means some scenes are/will be harder to write well, but sometimes I like it because you can really tell how they're feeling. Hope it doesn't bother you too much!

SO HAPPY we got a full season 8 though, guys! :) :)

RIGHT. Read & review, you know the drill.

* * *

"So... when did Brooke say the food was getting here?"

"Um... it should be soon, I think."

Silence.

I didn't really know what to say to him. It was pretty much my fault we were in these surroundings. Sure, it was sweet of Brooke and I loved her for trying, but sitting here now... it just was not what we needed.

"So..." I started.

I couldn't think of anything to say.

"Hales..."

"Yeah?"

"Do you not think this is... kind of... weird?"

Part of me wanted to defend the situation, seeing as I had agreed to it and had brought it upon Nathan and so I felt responsible. But... I couldn't defend it, because I really didn't agree with it. A few hours ago I thought it might help, but now... Now I knew this was clearly not helping.

"Yeah, yeah I do," I said with a weak smile. "It's just... She thought this atmosphere might help us talk..."

He smiled.

"Haley, we've never needed to play games with eachother. We don't... We don't need this."

I sighed.

"Yeah... I know. I know we don't."

He looked across the table at me, then the doorbell rang.

"That must be the food," I said, getting up to go answer the door.

I answered the door to find a chinese man standing there with a bag of food. He tried to get past me into the house.

"What are you doing?"

"Miss Davis asked me to come in and serve you," he replied.

"What? Oh, well, that won't be necessary," I told him, trying to just take the bag from him and get him towards the door. "How much?"

"Miss Davis already paid me," he said. "And I really am supposed to serve-"

Nathan then came through, seeing me trying to close the door on this man.

"What's going on?" he asked, looking protective.

"Brooke paid him to serve it for us inside," I informed him.

"Oh. Right," he laughed.

"Listen, I was paid to do that service-"

"Yeah, well, we're paying you to leave," Nathan said, pressing a twenty onto his chest. "Thank you."

With that I managed to close the door on him.

"Oh my god," was all I could say. This evening wasn't turning out like I imagined. In fact... I had had no idea what was going to happen anyway. And I still didn't.

He followed me into the dim, candle-lit kitchen with the bag of chinese food. I set it on the counter and didn't really know what to do next. After pausing for a second to try and think of something to do to avoid further awkwardness, I reached for the cupboard to get plates.

Then Nathan's hand stopped my own. The feeling of that immediate contact made my heart race. I looked up at him to see what he was doing.

"Don't bother with plates. Listen," he said, letting go of my hand and going to turn the lights in the kitchen on to their full brightness, "How about we let go of this set-up date stuff and just relax. We can just take the food into the living room in the cartons and not have all this," he said as he gestured to the dining room.

"Sounds good," I said, already feeling better without the awkwardness of the dimmed lights. Nathan smiled and walked towards the living room, picking up our glasses of water from the table along the way. I followed with the bag of food.

I set the bag on the coffee table as Nathan un-dimmed the lights. It felt much better.

I leaned over to blow out some of the candles, but Nathan stopped me by placing his hand on my arm. There it was again - that racing of my heart.

"Leave the candles. They're kind of nice."

He sat down on the couch, and I joined him. I pulled out some of the cartons from the bag, handed them to him, got my own and sat back on the sofa.

"See, I mean, I don't think we needed that whole set up," he said while opening up his cartons. "Moving forward is something that can't be forced, and I just... I think just letting you take your time is better than forcing it." He looked up and saw my doubtful facial expression. "Unless... Unless you wanted to do that? Haley, I'm sorry, I just thought, I mean if you want to do that then we can-"

"Nathan," I said with a smile, stopping him from flapping about. "No. I didn't really want that set up either. This is good, honestly."

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure!"

"Then why did you look so doubtful about what I said?"

"Because... this whole _taking my time_ stuff. It's not fair to you."

"What Haley? No. Please don't think like that. I wouldn't be happy moving forward if I knew you weren't comfortable with it. Just... go with the flow."

"That's your advice? Go with the flow?" I laughed, as Nathan sat back to eat his food.

"Shut up," he teased. "I don't think I will ever get used to chopsticks," he said while awkwardly trying to get his chopsticks around some noodles.

"Want me to get you a fork?" I asked with a laugh.

"No, no it's okay, you do that for me every time. I need to learn."

I just lay my head against the couch and looked at him. Just took him in. The determination in his face to get something right, even it was only to master the art of eating with chopsticks.

"What?"

"Nothing," I smiled. "Want some help?"

He sighed.

"Yes please."

I couldn't help but laugh.

"You hold the first one in these fingers, like this, okay?" I said, demonstrating with my own, watching him attempt it. "No, put your thumb here," I said, guiding his thumb to the correct spot. "Now put the other one like that, so you can move it with that finger," I said, getting his hands into the right position.

After a few seconds we kind of realised that we were just sitting there staring at our interlaced hands.

"Um... you got it?" I asked as I gently pulled my hand away.

I watched as he tried to pick up some noodles. Unsuccessfully.

"These things are so stupid," he said, hooking noodles on one of the chopsticks and just guiding them to his mouth.

"Oh, Nathan. You do make me laugh."

He looked at me with that smirk of his.

"Good. It's good to see you laughing."

I smiled shyly at that comment.

We began talking about Jamie and how adorable he was and what we'd been speaking about with him recently and how he was handling everything with us. It was a conversation without any trace of awkwardness, we were getting on fine, but something that had been niggling at my mind since yesterday afternoon kept creeping to the front. I kept trying to get rid of it, but it wouldn't go away. I didn't want to think or talk about that right now.

_"And then you said... you said you loved me, so I was really happy and excited and..."_

I couldn't silence that thought. That thought that Nathan had possibly doubted my love for him before I said it that night? It didn't bare thinking about. So I pushed it as far away from the centre of my mind as I could.

"Yeah, Jamie's handling it pretty well," I said. "I just wish he could understand easier, it would make it a lot less tough on him."

"I know. But he's a tough kid, I'm sure he'll be fine for the next... however long it takes."

"Yeah. He's doing better than I would have thought, actually."

"Yeah. Um, Haley... can I ask you something? I mean I know we're not doing that whole set up and I'm not trying to make things awkward, but I just... I have to ask you something."

"Sure, of course!"

He sighed and looked a bit worried about what he was about to say. I had no idea what he was going to ask.

"That night, at Lucas and Lindsey's bachelor party, when you said you were done trying," he started, playing with his food, "Were you... what... what did you mean?"

I closed my eyes for a second. That. I didn't even know the answer to that myself, and it killed me to see how worried Nathan looked about it.

"I... Nathan, I don't even know. I felt pretty lost that week, and we hadn't spoken for a few days and... just, at the time I didn't feel up for trying to change us... but that does not mean that I was giving up. I know it sounds like it," I said, looking down, ashamed, "But it didn't. I could never..."

"Hales, it's okay. I was just confused about it, that's all."

He still looked unsure about it and I didn't want him doubting my actions, so I continued.

"Nathan, you have to believe that I would never give up on you. On us. I said that night that I had changed you and I shouldn't have, but that's not really true. You changed yourself. I just happened to be along side of you when that happened."

"Hales, come on..."

"No, Nathan, it's true. I didn't make you do anything, I _didn't_ change you." He had to believe that.

He looked at me and smiled. Finally. He seemed really unrelaxed the whole time this topic had been brought up.

"Well I know I wouldn't be the person I am today if it hadn't been for you."

God, I loved him so much.

I still didn't understand how he could have doubted that.

_"You said you loved me, so I was really happy and excited..."_

I didn't know if he doubted it or if he just needed reassurance after everything, but there was just no way I could not ever love him. I'd been falling for him since our very first tutoring session on that dock, but I could still remember that moment where I just _knew _that I was in love with him.

_I was wiping the counters in the cafe for the millionth time. It was all I'd been doing for the last five minutes. I was just in the worst mood possible. The guilt I felt over shouting at Lucas before his accident combined with my anger at Nathan for doing what he did. When he told me what he did, I just kept thinking that for over a month he had been dating me just to screw with Lucas. Our whole relationship had been a lie. _

_But after thinking about all that we'd been through together already, I couldn't believe that was true. He wasn't screwing with Lucas when he kissed me in front of my house that day. That kiss was all for me and I knew it. I could feel it. Those words he spoke to me after the game when he took drugs were not a trick. They were real, of course they were. When he told me that sex didn't matter until I was ready, he meant it. All those times we'd talked, kissed and laughed together had been solely about us and no one else._

_Even though I thought all this, I just couldn't face Nathan. The whole reason we became a couple was based on a lie. That week when he kept asking me and calling me to get me to tutor him hadn't been because I was the best tutor at the school or because he needed the grades for basketball. It was so he could use me to get back at Lucas._

_But was it? I just didn't know. I didn't know anything right now. All I knew was that I was pissed off with him for making me doubt our whole relationship._

_The door opened to the cafe. I sighed when I heard it - I couldn't be bothered to put on a cheery waitress act with whatever customer just came in._

_I looked up to find Nathan walk in. I felt my heart do that same thing it did everytime I saw him - race - but I ignored it. I didn't want to be feeling that way when I was so pissed at him._

_"Nathan, I am not in the mood right now, okay..."_

_I went back to pretending to do work. I really didn't want to talk to him, it just hurt to think about what our relationship might mean to him now that I'd heard the truth about how we got started._

_"Lucas is awake." _

_That caught me off guard. I looked up at him._

_"I was there when he opened his eyes... I went to see him."_

_"Why?"_

_"Cause I knew you couldn't. I wanted him to know that you were thinking about him."_

_My heart skipped a beat at his words. I felt that angry exterior melt away._

_"I know it was wrong to go after you for the reasons that I did. But I can't apologise for it, I'm glad I did it. I'm not that person anymore, and it's because of you."_

_All I could do was look at him. Look at this person in front of me - the one who had made me feel more alive than I thought I could; who had dared me to try new things; who had made me feel special. _

_After what he said the other night, I doubted all of this. Not now. _

_At that moment, I felt myself fall completely and utterly in love with him. This guy who used to be a jerk to pretty much everyone in his life - especially Lucas - had just gone to the hospital to see him. For me. This guy who admitted that he was wrong to go after me just to spite Lucas, but said that he was glad he did it, because of me._

_"Let me take you to him." He reached out his hand onto the counter for me to take._

_I still hadn't said anything. I'd remained silent. I was so, so touched by his gesture yet so shaken by my own feelings. I was in love with him. _

_I was in love with him._

_A tear began rolling down my cheek. I looked at his outstretched hand, then back at him. I still couldn't believe it. Nathan went to see Lucas for me. He went out of his way to go see a guy that he really did not like all because he knew I couldn't. He did it for me. _

_I placed my hand in his. I felt him squeeze it, which I returned. His eyes hadn't torn from my own the whole time he'd been talking to me._

_"Come on," he whispered._

_I lightly let his hand go and motioned to Julie, the other girl that was working, that I was heading out. I got round to the other side of the counter and looked up at Nathan. God, I loved him. More than I realised. The way he made me feel by just a simple look... it was amazing. _

_He opened the door for me and followed me outside to his mom's car, where he opened the door for me again. I got in. We still hadn't said a word since we'd left the cafe._

_Nathan got into the driver's seat and looked at me._

_"Haley."_

_I moved my eyes from out the window to his._

_"Is everything okay? You have to know that our relationship has meant everything to me, Haley, the using you thing, it's not been like that for a long time..."_

_"Nathan," I smiled. "It's okay. We're okay." _

_We're more than okay, I thought, as my heart continued to race at his heartfelt looks and words._

_"Good. So you ready to go see Lucas?"_

_I nodded my head, then went back to looking out the window. We set off, and all I could think about was the realisation I had just made. The feeling I had just felt. I loved Nathan. I was in love with him. And as scary as that thought was, it was incredible. I was so overwhelmed by it that I couldn't even initiate a conversation in the car with him. But he wasn't trying to make me talk, he seemed to understand that I was happy in the silence. And knowing that we were so in tune with eachother just made me love him even more. _

_We turned the corner to the hospital and after a silent, peaceful journey of me mulling in the fact that I was now completely in love with the person sitting next to me, realisation hit. I was about to see Lucas. I began to get scared. What if he wouldn't forgive me? What if I walked in and he was still angry with me? What happened if we went in and were told that he'd slipped back into a coma or something? There was that, plus the addition of worrying whether or not he was actually okay and would be back to good health soon. Seeing that glimpse of Lucas in the hospital bed the other day had been awful when Peyton tried to get me to come, and I didn't really like the sight, especially after knowing what the last thing I said to him was. _

_Nathan parked the car, but didn't get out right away._

_"You ready?"_

_I looked at him. He had genuine concern in his eyes._

_"Haley, I understand if you're hesitant about going in, but you've got nothing to worry about."_

_I replied with a smile._

_"Okay? Come on," he said, touching my arm softly before he got out of the car._

_I followed him to the hospital. I could tell he was kind of hesitant about my feelings about us, because he didn't put his arm around me like he usually did. He was more cautious, looking at me pretty much the whole walk up to Lucas's room._

_We reached his room, and as soon as I saw him on the bed, I felt tears well up in my eyes. Brooke was sitting on his bed and they were laughing together, but then Lucas noticed me standing there. Brooke turned, smiled, and got up off the bed. I'd judged her a lot recently, but in this moment she seemed so sweet. I walked over to the bed._

_"Hey buddy," Lucas spoke. "I missed you."_

_I couldn't hold in my tears any longer. I just sobbed into Lucas's arms. The guilt I felt was replaced by relief that he was okay, and that he forgave me. My best friend. _

_When I was over the crying stage, we just spoke. It felt so good to be talking with Lucas again. I'd really missed him these past few days._

_After speaking for about twenty minutes I turned to find Karen walking into the room._

_"I think I'll get going, let you spend some time with your mom."_

_"Okay, thanks. See you soon, Hales," Lucas replied._

_"Bye, Haley," Karen said, giving me a one armed hug. "I knew you two would get through it."_

_I smiled back. I hadn't known that Karen knew about me and Lucas's argument. _

_I left the room. Nathan was sitting on one of the chairs outside, looking pretty bored. But he'd waited for me anyway. My love for him was growing stronger every second._

_"Hey," he said, noticing me and standing up. "You want me to take you home?"_

_"No, it's okay, I want to stay with you," I replied._

_"Okay, um, you want to come to my house then?"_

_"Yeah," I said, smiling._

_We made our way down to the car and set off for his house. I hadn't been to his house nearly as often as he'd been to mine - he said he wanted to keep me away from any Dan encounters, because even though he wasn't staying at their house anymore, he still managed to find reasons to be there a lot of the time._

_We drove in silence. It wasn't an uncomfortable one. Not for me, anyway. I just didn't really know what to say to him after my self-realisation. There was no way I was telling him. Not yet. But I was quite happy in the silence._

_We drew up in his driveway. I wasn't sure what Nathan was really feeling right now. We'd never been so quiet in eachother's presence for so long before! But I knew he was just trying to make me comfortable in light of what had happened recently. _

_He told me to go upstairs while he told his mom that he was home and so he could return her car keys. I walked up to his room and took off my jacket and shoes. It was only like, the third or fourth time I'd been in here. I sat on his bed and took in my surroundings. D12 and Eminem posters scattered the walls. I noticed a photo frame on the bedstand, and turned it so I could see the photo properly. _

_It was of me and him. I felt my heart swell in my chest. I mean, it shouldn't really surprise someone when their boyfriend has a photo of them, but seeing it for the first time... It just made me feel so happy to know that he had this, that he saw it every night before he went to bed and every morning when he woke up. It was from the day we skipped school to go see Bottle Rocket; we took the train downtown and made a day of it. It was like our first little adventure. The picture was taken on the train, and I was sort of sitting on Nathan's lap and he had his arms around me. The wide smiles on our faces were so genuine and carefree and happy. Happy to just be with eachother. He had asked a woman sitting near us to take the picture with his phone. I hadn't even seen the picture properly until now, and seeing that he'd gotten it printed and put in a frame was just... amazing._

_He walked into his room and saw me looking at the photo._

_"Like the picture?" he asked with a smile as he removed his shoes, and then his hoodie._

_"I love it," I replied._

_He came and sat down next to me on the bed._

_"Haley, are you sure everything's okay with us? I don't want you to still be mad, you have to know I never-"_

_"Shh," I whispered, putting my fingers up to his lips. "It's okay." I moved closer to him. "I know." I tilted his face down towards mine and moved in for a kiss. _

_God, I loved that taste. The way his lips moved around mine. The way he parted his lips to grant my tongue access. The way he put his hand gently on my cheek, then moved it through my hair, then down to my neck and shoulder. _

_The feel of his hands moving along that part of my shoulder so slowly and gently made me shiver, and I deepened the kiss. I maybe wasn't ready to tell him that I loved him, but I sure as hell was going to show him. I maybe wasn't ready for sex yet, but he knew and understood that. _

_He leaned us further back onto the bed, so that I was lying down and he was on top of me. I always loved the feeling of him being on top of me, even though we were just making out. Well, not 'just' making out, it meant a lot. It meant so much that Nathan wasn't pressuring me._

_I could kiss him forever. The feel of him was just perfect. _

_**We** were perfect._

_We continued kissing as I gripped his hair. That always felt so good as well. Everything about Nathan felt good. His hand lightly went up my shirt a few inches as he smoothly stroked my stomach. It was strange how something so platonic felt so damn good. But then again, Nathan always had that effect on me. Making me feel good. As he continued lightly stroking my stomach with his thumb he began kissing my neck. My hands slipped to his waist so my arms wouldn't block his access. I could feel him marking me, but I didn't care. I was his. This all just felt way too damn good. It always had, but now it just felt more special. I was in love with him._

_"You're beautiful, you know that?" he said softly as he rubbed his nose against the tip of my own, then leaned his forehead against mine._

_"What?" I blushed. It wasn't the first time he'd told me this, but it made me blush all the same._

_"Yep. Beautiful," he started, as he kissed the spot he'd just marked on my neck, "...amazing," he kissed the other side of my neck, "...perfect," and he captured my lips once more. I knew that there was no going back. I was going to love him forever._

I would always remember that day. That moment that I fell in love with him, that I knew I always would. Hell, I remembered pretty much every moment we'd shared together. And that memory just reaffirmed what Nathan and I were speaking about before. _"I'm not that guy anymore, and it's because of you."_

"Hey, um... you know how it's Jamie's birthday next week?"

"Yup."

"Well... I was thinking. The guest bedroom, it never gets used and it's pretty dull in there, the walls are like, white, so how's about we do it up? Then at the party we could put Pin the Tail on the Donkey or something in there," I suggested as I sat back on the couch and pulled my feet up.

"That sounds good!" Nathan replied with a mouthful of noodles.

"Oh yeah? Speaking with your mouth full doesn't!" I laughed as I teased him with a small kick in the thigh.

"Whatever," he said. "Well that does sound good, want to get it painted tomorrow?"

"Yeah! Why not?"

"Okay, good," he said, still eating his chinese food. "We'll go to the mall tomorrow, get some paint and brushes and stuff."

"Cool. You know, Jamie's really excited for his birthday."

"Yeah, he was telling me earlier about all the stuff he wants, for it," Nathan said. "If the kid got everything that he wants for the party this house would be a complete bomb site."

"Yeah, I think he wants a Wii..."

And then we just spoke. For hours. And it was not uncomfortable at all. It was even better than the night before, because I think Nathan had gotten a lot off his chest after worrying about what I said at the bachelorette party. I had moved so I was sitting a bit further away from him so that I could stretch my legs out and put my feet on his lap. Things were definitely getting better; more and more like they used to be.

After these few hours, I suggested sticking on the TV. We were never more amused by the television than eachother, but watching good or stupid programmes and talking about them with eachother - making fun of them or whatever - was just something we'd always done. I moved from my stretched out position and moved across the couch so I was closer to him, and laid my head on his shoulder. He looked at me in surprise, but smiled. He turned on the TV and there we sat.

* * *

"Guys! Guys!"

I opened my eyes. I hadn't even meant to fall asleep. That was a damn good nap though.

I felt movement beside me and remembered why. Haley was snuggled up next to me.

"Guuuys...!" Brooke repeated, standing in front of us and trying to wake us up.

I realised my right arm had managed to snake around Haley's back and was holding her protectively. I didn't want to move it, but I didn't want to not move it either, in case Haley thought I was being weird and felt uncomfortable about it.

"Hey Brooke," Haley said as she woke up properly and stretched out, giving me time to take my arm back. "I'm so sorry, we didn't mean to fall asleep."

"Clearly," Brooke said with a smile, motioning to the TV which was still on.

"What time is it?" she asked Brooke.

"Ten thirty."

"What?"

"Yep."

"Is Jamie...?"

"Sleeping," Brooke finished.

"Oh. Didn't know we were out for so long," I said.

"Yeah, well, you didn't know that for the past two hours I've been sitting waiting for you two to come upstairs!" Brooke teased. "I see you followed my rules," she said, motioning towards the takeaway cartons lying on the coffee table in front of us.

"Um..." I started.

"It doesn't matter, guys, as long as you two are okay. Right, I'm going to go home now!" she said as she pulled on her coat. "Thanks for trusting me with Jamie, guys."

"No problem, Brooke. He loves you," Haley told her.

"Yeah. Let's hope the adoption lady thinks the same!"

"Oh my God, Brooke, I forgot about that. When is that?"

"Thursday."

"You nervous?" I asked.

"A bit, but you know, I'll take it as it comes."

"Okay, well, see you Brooke," Haley said as she got up off the couch and gave her a hug.

Once Brooke had left, Haley turned to me.

"I can't believe we were asleep for more than an hour! I feel ready to just go back to sleep though," she said, yawning. As she stretched I could see part of her stomach. Her beautiful stomach. Damn, it had been so long since I'd seen some skin properly like that. It just made me ache for her more.

"Yeah, me too. It was a good sleep," I replied.

"Okay, well," she began picking up the empty food cartons, "I'm going to go upstairs and go to bed. You okay down here?"

I hated hearing that last part. Well, I loved that she felt the need to ask if I was okay, but I still hated the fact we were sleeping in separate beds. But at least we were headed in a better direction. Maybe after tonight she'd realise that sleeping next to me wasn't so terrible after all.

"Yeah, I'm good," I responded.

"Okay, well, er," she looked a bit awkward at leaving me down here again before she went upstairs, "I'll see you in the morning. Night, Nathan."

"Night, Hales."

* * *

**Thanks for reading! Please review. :]**


	12. Times Like These

**A/N: **Hey guys! Sorry about the delay, had lots of school deadlines the past couple of weeks. You must know there's no way I'm going to give up on this story!

This chapter's named after the song by Foo Fighers - the acoustic live version is on ep 4x20 of OTH. Great music moment!

PLEASE review, every time I read them I'm like RIGHT gotta get on with the story!

Enjoy!

* * *

I woke up with the buzzer of the early alarm on my phone that I'd set the night before. I didn't want Haley to have to come downstairs and wake me up again and make me breakfast. She deserved to be pampered, not be fussing about over me. I quietly went to the bathroom upstairs that wasn't our en suite and washed my face and brushed my teeth quickly and quietly, then crept into our bedroom.

Jamie and Haley were both sound asleep. I'd set my alarm for about 10 minutes before I knew Haley's went off, and when I went into the room I quietly switched off her alarm. She deserved a lie-in, especially on a Monday morning.

I just looked her for a second. Looked at her sleeping. She was so peaceful, so beautiful.

I crept to the bed and gently shoved Jamie. His eyes slowly opened, along with his mouth which I managed to shh quickly.

"Shh, Jame. Come on." I lifted him out of the bed and carried him out of the room in fear that he would wake his mom up while he got up. Before we left the room I looked at her again to make sure she hadn't woken up, and luckily she was still sound asleep.

"Why are we not waking up momma?" Jamie asked as I carried him down the stairs.

"Because," I said, setting him on the floor when we reached the bottom of the stairs, your mom needs a lie in and to relax. So daddy's going to get you ready for school today!"

"Cool!"

"So, cereal?"

"Yup."

I lifted him onto one of the chairs at the breakfast counter and poured some cereal and milk into a bowl for him.

"So," he said inbetween mouthfuls, "How come you've not come up back to bed?"

_Fantastic,_ I thought. I hated seeing him so confused and not understanding what was going on. And I hated being put on the spot like that, having to come up with an answer.

"Um, we talked about this buddy, I'm just going to stay downstairs for a while."

"Is it because I'm in your bed?"

"No, Jamie, it's not, you don't have to move from that bed til you're ready. And when it's time for me to go back to bed, I will."

He continued munching on his mouthful of cereal before proceeding to ask another question. I'd spent plenty of time with him over the past few days yet he decided to ask me all these questions first thing in the morning?

"Does momma not want you to come back to bed?"

Yeah, my kid certainly knew how to silence me.

"Um... Jamie, it's complicated. How's about you just worry about eating your cereal and you let me worry about where I sleep. Hopefully it won't be too long before I'm upstairs."

"Okay," he said, contentedly continuing to eat his cereal. It baffled me the way his mind worked. He could be so interested in something but completely switch to not being bothered about it. That, or he was just sick of us giving him the same useless answers to his questions everytime he asked. Either way, I was glad that the discussion was over.

After half an hour of getting Jamie dressed, teeth brushed, pack lunch made, bag checked and Chester goodbye'd, it was time to get Jamie to school. I was careful to be quiet in closing the door so I wouldn't wake up Haley. I just hoped to God that she wouldn't wake up while we were gone - she would freak out if she woke up with Jamie gone from beside her and no one else in the house.

When I returned from putting Jamie to school I went up to the bedroom to check that Haley was still sleeping, then returned downstairs. I wanted to let her sleep for a while longer, but I didn't really know what to do for the meantime. I could just watch TV, but I wanted to do something productive. For Haley.

I decided to tidy up and clean the living room and kitchen, so Haley would have less to worry about. I wanted her to have a great day. I didn't want her to feel that just because she wasn't ready to have sex with me yet we couldn't still have great days together. I mean, we still weren't fully reconnected, because for that to happen Haley had to confide in me completely - both her heart and body. And as much as I wanted her to be ready, I didn't want to push it. I wasn't going to pressure her.

When it was almost ten o'clock I started making her favourite breakfast so I could bring up to her. I arranged it all nicely on a tray and up I went.

I opened the door slowly and quietly to find her still sleeping soundly. I set the tray on the bedside table and sat on the edge of the bed to wake her up.

"Hales," I whispered softly as I gently shook her.

"Mmm?"

"Wake up."

Her eyes opened slowly and she smiled when she saw me. She glanced over at her clock and her eyes widened.

"Oh my God! Is that the right time?" She looked at the other side of the bed to see that Jamie wasn't there either. "What the hell?"

"Haley, Haley, relax. He's at school."

She still looked incredibly confused.

"I switched off your alarm and got Jamie to school so you could have a lie-in," I told her.

Her confused facial expression turned much softer until a wide smile graced her face.

"Oh. Nathan, thank you. You didn't have to do that-"

"Hey, I wanted to. I didn't want you to have to come downstairs and see me on the couch and wake me up and get me breakfast all the time. So," I began, leaning over and getting the tray from the bedside table, "Here's _your_ breakfast."

She looked at me in pure awe, and then down at the food. She got that look on her face that told me her eyes had welled up - the look she thought she could hide from me whenever she made it, but I could always tell there was something up.

"Haley, what's wrong?" I asked with a small laugh, slightly confused.

"No, no, nothing, it's just..." She sighed, but still making sure no tears fell. "Thank you. Your special pancakes with syrup!" She squealed excitedly. "Thank you, Nathan. You have no idea how much this means to me."

It warmed my heart to see her so happy with what I'd done, so appreciative. It made me feel good for myself, but most importantly it was because I'd made Haley happy. That's all that mattered.

"So how did you manage to get Jamie out of here without me waking up? I didn't hear a thing!" she asked while tucking into her breakfast in bed.

"After I got him to wake up I carried him out of the room right away so he wouldn't say anything to disturb you. I gotta admit, I'm pretty impressed I managed that part!" I laughed.

"Yeah, me too. What time did you get him up?"

"It was about ten minutes before your alarm was supposed to go off, because that's when I turned it off."

"Aah, I see. Good sleep?"

"Yeah, it was fine. I'm sleeping a lot better here."

She smiled at that, but it was kind of an awkward smile as she got back to her food.

"That's good. Couch fine? Is it okay on your back?"

"Yes, Haley, it's all good. My back is good."

"You're sure?"

"Yes," I assured her. As much as I didn't like seeing Haley fretting about stuff, knowing she was so concerned was a comfort. Our relationship was weird right now but to know that nothing had changed deep down, that she still cared just as much, if not more, than she did before. "You manage to get to sleep okay after our nap?" I asked, smiling at the memory. That had been nice.

"Um, yeah, I did," she said, looking uncomfortable again and taking another bite to eat. I didn't say anything, just waited as she chewed thoughtfully. She had the look on her face that said she was wanting to say something but wasn't sure about it, so I gave her time to get it out. After a few moments, she did. "I, er, I don't think we should let that happen again."

Her eyes looked from her plate up to me.

"What do you mean?"

"We shouldn't... let ourselves fall asleep on the sofa again. Together, like we did last night."

She saw my confused expression and continued.

"It's just... if Jamie had come in and saw us he would assume things were back to normal and I don't want to make him any more confused than he already is."

I was a bit taken aback by this. I mean, it's not like I expected her to suggest that we snuggle on the sofa every night, but I didn't really expect this either. When she first said it I was initially hurt, thinking that she was taking a step backwards in our journey forward, that she had maybe realised that it was going to be a lot longer than she had anticipated before we went back to being _us_, but when she mentioned Jamie I knew she was right, and that that was in fact the real reason she said it.

"Uh, yeah, that's fine, good idea," I replied awkwardly.

After a few moments of silence, Haley spoke again.

"This is really, really good."

She really did look rather content with filling her face with my awesome breakfast.

"I'm glad you like it. You deserve treats like this more often."

I saw that familiar blush redden her face. It was such a cute quality, one of the many, many things I loved about her.

"So you want to start decorating the guest bedroom today?" she asked.

"Yeah, that sounds good," I said. It really would be great to do something like this together, hopefully get us further back on track.

* * *

Half an hour later we entered the mall, buzzing with people doing all sorts of shopping. I loved the mall. Not because I was a shopaholic - that was Brooke's title - but I just loved the feel of the mall. So many people dashing about, yet not rushing into you. So many shops and stalls. It was even better at Christmas time.

I glanced over at the pretzel stand and laughed.

"What you laughing at?" Nathan asked when he noticed me giggling in the middle of making our way through the mall to the escalator.

"Hot and Twisted," I replied with a cheeky smile, nodding towards his old workplace.

"Oh. Right."

"Right," I said, teasing him. "You were probably the best employee they ever had..."

"Shut up!" Nathan laughed.

"What? Your pretzels were definitely better than the ones that are actually..."

"Real pretzels?" he finished.

I laughed. "Yep. And you looked so good in that hat."

"Oh yeah. Yeah that was definitely my finest hour in work attire."

"Hmm, I preferred the mechanic look," I teased, looking up at him. He glanced down at me and laughed softly before looking ahead again and making our way to the DIY store.

I felt a bit put out. I had been obviously flirting, and he didn't even flinch? I mean, he acknowledged it, but he didn't really look at me. He just looked away. Usually he would smile at me and actually look me in the eye for longer than two seconds... Thoughts resurfaced of him not wanting me anymore and I tried my best to get rid of them.

As I had been thinking this, we had made it to the paint section of the store.

"So, what colour were you thinking?" he asked, taking in the thousands of different paint samples on the shelves.

"Er..." I shook away all doubts regarding us and focused on the task in hand. "I was thinking a pale green?"

"Yeah, that sounds good," he said, smiling and reaching for a big can of light green paint. "How's this shade?"

"Ooh, that's good actually," I replied, admiring the fact that the can he'd picked up was the exact shade I was thinking of. "Let's just get it! If we see other colours it'll take us years to decide, might as well get this one now."

"Cool!" He reached up for another can. "Paintbrushes now?"

"Yep. And rollers."

We bought all the stuff we needed from the DIY store, and made our way back into the main part of the mall.

"Hey, er, do you think we should maybe buy a new mattress for the bed that's in there?" he asked, looking at the floor as he spoke. I knew why this was - it was because that was the bed that Carrie had been sleeping in while she stayed with us. That bitch.

But the fact that Nathan was suggesting that he didn't want the mattress she'd slept on to be in our house reasurred me of the fact that Nathan was completely and one hundred per cent not interested in Carrie and wanted the stuff she'd touched to be gone. But he was missing just one fact.

"Right, well... I kind of already bought a new mattress for that room. The week before Luke's wedding. Or almost-wedding, whatever it was."

Nathan laughed.

"Good. That means we can get on with painting then!"

I chuckled. Even though I really did know that Nathan was not interested in Carrie at all, it was nice to hear just how much he wanted any trace of her gone. I'm pretty sure everyone we knew felt that way, though, after she took Jamie. That cow.

When we arrived home after our shopping trip I fixed us an early lunch. Once we had eaten, we went upstairs, taking all of our DIY supplies with us.

"I guess I'll have to change into something else," Nathan said, going into our bedroom, taking his shirt off in the process.

I was so stunned by his action that I just kind of stared at him as I followed him into our room. Damn, his chest always looked so fucking good.

"Eh, wh- why?"

"So I don't get paint on my good clothes." He pulled out an old white T-shirt and pulled it on. At least now I could focus and not jumble up my words.

"Oh, right yeah. Guess I should do the same."

He began looking through my side of the closet and pulled out an old red tank top that I only wore on fullscale cleaning days.

"Here," he said as he tossed it to me.

"Thanks." I caught it, and started to make my way from the door of our bedroom over to the en suite to change. But I thought this would be a good chance to really see how attracted Nathan was to my body. I decided to stop at the bed, place the tank on it and took my shirt of there and then. I stood there in my bra for a second as I placed the shirt I'd just removed neatly onto the bed and picked up the tank. At that moment I subtly looked up to Nathan to see if he was looking... no such luck. He was doing something with his clothes in the closet.

I angrily pulled my tank over my head and left the room and went through to the spare. As I stood there I heard Nathan jog up behind me.

"You okay?"

"Yeah."

"You sure?"

"Yep!"

"Okay. Well let's get our paint on!"

I couldn't stay annoyed when he said that. I couldn't not laugh when he tried to pull of that kind of talk.

"Oh, right, will we?" I chuckled.

"Yep, but first we got to move some of this furniture away from the walls," he said as he walked over to the bed and began pulling it towards him.

"Woah woah woah!" I exclaimed as he started. "Nathan! Your back! Let me do it."

"Hales, my back is-"

"Fine, yeah, I know you've said that before..."

"That's because it is! Haley, come on." He put his hand on my arm as I rushed over and was about to begin moving the bed to stop me. "Look at me."

I did as I was told and looked into those dark blue eyes of his.

"You don't have to worry about my back. I'm walking now, I'm running, I'm not straining myself. This is a piece of cake. Please, I do not want you worrying. And I took practice off today because I knew we'd be doing this, and I didn't want to have to leave. And I also didn't want you worrying about me doing to much 'strenuous activity' in one day," he smiled. "Okay?"

I knew he meant every word.

"Okay."

"Besides, do you really think a tiny little person like you could move all this by yourself?" he joked.

"Are you calling me weak?" I teased back.

"No, not at all. Go on then, move the whole bed away from the corner." He stood back as he allowed me full access to be able to attempt to move the bed.

I grabbed hold of the side of the bed nearest the wall and the post and heaved it towards me. It moved about an inch, and that was with a lot of strain.

"Okay, you were right," I smiled. "Smartass."

"Yeah, that's me. The smart one," he joked.

He moved the bed and both sets of drawers away from the walls to nearer the middle of the room, and we got the paint in the trays and got started.

Nathan was using a roller and getting a lot of the wall done while I worked on the corners and parts near the floor and ceiling with the brush.

I just could not keep my eyes off him. His arms moving and muscles bulging with every roll of the paint, a look of pure concentration etched across his face, his butt looking fantastic everytime he stretched upwards... it was becoming difficult for me to concentrate.

But I couldn't help but notice that everytime I looked at him he didn't really pay any notice to me, just to the wall. I mean, I didn't think I was looking particularly sexy or anything, I was just wearing jeans and a tank, but bending down to get the paint or stretching up to paint the ceiling just never seemed to be enough to spark any interest from my husband.

After about an hour of hardcore painting, I bent over the paint tin, my butt in the air and turned my head to ask Nathan something:

"Hey, want to take a coffee break?"

He looked down at me from his step ladder and nodded before climbing down and setting down his paintbrushes and roller and agreed. He hadn't gawked at my body at all. Just a blank look on his face as he answered an extremely platonic question.

"Hey, let me take your paintbrush," he said with a smile as he took them so he could place them in the tin. Then, without warning, he brushed it across my chin.

I gasped in mock-horror.

"Tell me you did not just do that, Nathan?"

"I could tell you that, but..."

"Fine!" I grabbed another brush, dipped it in paint and flicked it so it got him on his neck and T-shirt. "Woops."

He looked at me with that classic smirk of his.

I giggled as I flicked him with the paint again, harder this time.

"So that's how it is? You know, I don't think you're quite qualified to be using that paintbrush if that's how you're gonna be."

"Oh really?" I questioned with a smile. "So what about all that amazing work I've done on the walls?" I said, pointing towards it with the brush.

He looked at them for a second, before shaking his head.

"Nah."

"What?" I asked in horror. I could tell he was joking because he had that look on his face, but I was still going to get him for that comment.

He began laughing before I cut him off by swiping the paintbrush right along his arm and T-shirt.

"You can just not be trusted with that brush!" Nathan exclaimed. "Give it to me."

"No!"

"Haley, give me the brush!"

"Nope!" I squealed as I got him again on the neck.

"That's it."

He picked me up with one arm so I was facing away from him while he used his free hand to try and get the paintbrush out of my hand.

"Nathan, put me down!" I laughed.

"Give me the brush. It's dangerous in your hands."

"No!"

"Haley!"

"Nathan!" I said, trying to keep the brush away from his hands as my feet dangled above the ground as he still had his arm around me, lifting me up. "Put. Me. Down!" With that I got the paintbrush behind me and got some paint on the back of his hair.

"Hales!" he exclaimed in horror as he felt the paint on his head.

I was in hysterics at the whole situation - my feet several inches above the ground, held up by Nathan who was trying - and failing miserably - to get the paintbrush out of my hand while I continued to cover him in green paint. I was so much smaller than him that I found it hilarious that he couldn't manage to beat me.

"Desperate times..." he muttered as his fingers began tickling my stomach.

"NATHAN!"

I lost control when he tickled me. I squirmed so much but tried to retain control of the paintbrush, attacking any part of his clothing or body I could with it.

"Stop it!"

"No! You stop it!" I managed to say, giggling and squirming at the same time. I continued attacking him with the brush.

All of a sudden I felt us falling onto the bed in the middle of the room as he tickled me further, him still holding his arm around my torso from behind. The tickling was beginning to get too much for me to handle, but I did not want to lose this battle, not when I had held out so well at the beginning.

I couldn't stop laughing. He was tickling me in the places he knew made me go crazy. He was laughing too. This was definitely a fun painting session.

As we lay there laughing on the bed, squirming and trying to retrieve the paintbrush, I suddently got flashes in my mind of Nathan's reactions to me - last week when I came out of the bath, earlier today when I only had my bra on and a few minutes ago when I was bent over getting the paint - and I snapped out of it.

"Nathan, stop," I said, seriously this time.

"Give me the brush then!" he laughed, not sensing my change of tone.

I slammed the brush onto the bed before trying to break free of Nathan's grasp.

"Nathan, seriously, let me go now."

His arms slowly loosened their grasp around my waist and I marched out of the room, through to our bedroom and then out to the balcony. Just picturing his blank expression everytime I thought he perhaps could have looked a bit more interested or be the slightest bit startled by seeing me in such ways, like I had been with him several times, made me realise that I could not be sitting there on that bed, rolling around tickling and laughing. It was just so inappropriate.

But then, as I stood out there on the balcony, I realised that him picking me up and tickling me was, pretty much, him flirting and being affectionate. So what did it matter if there had been other times when he hadn't looked interested if he was being interested now?

I didn't know what was wrong with me. I just felt that it was so inappropriate to be acting like that when I had been so insecure about Nathan's feelings towards me. I mean, had we gone right ahead and done it right there on the bed I'm sure I would have known... but I had left before it had the chance go get to that stage. Great.

But would he have even wanted to? Sure, he was flirty, but I still didn't know for sure how he felt about things. I could have stayed there and we could have just been having a laugh, I could have stayed and we might have ended up having sex, or I could have stayed and I could be embarrassed by him avoiding any further affection.

The last option seemed incredibly unlikely, but ever since that fear had arisen in my head a few days ago it hadn't gone. It was that way when you're trying your hardest not to think about something because you know it will upset you, but it ends up being the thing that goes through your mind the most when your brain isn't thinking of other things. It wasn't going to go away until I knew for sure that Nathan really did want me. And his lack of reaction over the past few days had just increased that fear. That Nathan didn't find me sexy anymore.

It seemed ridiculous but I couldn't change it. But I didn't want to talk to him about it - I was embarrassed. Embarrassed with myself for thinking it in the first place, and for walking out on Nathan right now.

It was phenomenal when he had his hands on me, his warm, soft, slighly calloused, amazing hands grazing my skin as he tickled me, but that feeling suddenly became cold when I saw those images in my mind of Nathan's expressionless face, because I couldn't bear to have them on me for much longer knowing that nothing was going to happen, that we weren't being fully intimate, that it was going to have to wait until I had the guts to bring it up.

* * *

I didn't know what had just happened. One moment we were having fun and laughing properly together for the first time in ages, the next she was storming out. I sat there feeling a bit bewildered. She looked pretty mad when she left.

What if she thought I was trying to pressure her into being ready to be intimate with me again by pulling her down onto the bed?

I sighed. I did not want her thinking that all. I mean, all I wanted to do everytime I saw her was hold her and kiss her, but I was trying to avoid situations that would make her feel uncomfortable because not only would that be bad for her, but I also had trouble controlling myself. In fact I'd been trying not to look at her too much when she was doing something I knew would just turn me on because it was so difficult not to just grab her and kiss her. And I knew that's not what she wanted. Not yet, anyway. Hopefully she'd be ready soon, but there was no way I was going to push her.

I'd heard her walk into our bedroom so I went through to talk to her but saw no sign of her. I figured she must be on the balcony.

"Hales?"

Sure enough she was out on the balcony, standing facing our back garden.

I went and stood next to her, leaning on the rail of the balcony.

"Everything okay?"

"Yeah," she muttered, not shifting her eyes at all from the view below the balcony.

"You sure?"

She nodded.

"Well, what... what was that, Haley?"

She still wouldn't look up at me. She just sighed.

"Haley..." I placed my hand on her shoulder only for her to suddenly move back. She had backed away from me touching her. "What's wrong?"

"Just... just stop it!" she exclaimed before rushing back into the house. I stood there speechless. I was even more baffled than when she had walked out of the spare bedroom several minutes ago.

* * *

I sat cross-legged on the bed in the middle of the spare room, picking the threads of the pillow. I hadn't meant to snap at Nathan, but just that slight second of his warm hands on me was enough to make me back away. I'd had no problem letting him touch me the last few days, but I just think I was really hypersensitive at the moment because it was all that had been going through my mind. I felt bad - the look on his face when I backed away from him was full of hurt and shock. But those warm hands on me were too much at the moment.

"Coffee?"

I looked up and saw Nathan at the door holding two mugs of coffee.

I smiled weakly, embarrassed at my earlier mini hissy fit.

"Thanks," I said as he gave me one when he walked over to the bed. I took a sip - whenever he made the coffee it always seemed to taste better.

He sat down on the bed, not too close to me.

"So," he began, before I cut him off.

"I'm sorry, Nathan."

"No, it's okay, I understand," he said as he took a sip of his coffee. But he really didn't.

"No but Nathan, it's just... I'm sorry. I was being a little bitch. Don't pay attention to me."

"What? Haley, I'm the one who should be apologising, I never should have tickled you so much and pulled you onto the bed... I wasn't trying to-"

"I get it, I get it," I sighed. He wasn't trying anything on. Of course. "Don't apologise. Seriously, my brain's just being stupid today."

He laughed.

"You sure you're okay? I know things are kind of hard with us sometimes right now, but don't think that any bad can come of us just having fun together, you know?"

I smiled.

"I know. You're right. And I've actually had a really good time today, it's been the first day you've been home that it's just you and me. It's nice. And I really am sorry I stormed out earlier," I added.

"Don't be. I'm glad you're having a good day, cause so am I. I've loved being able to just do something together." We smiled at eachother. "When do you reckon we'll get this room finished? Today?"

"How's about we set that challenge for ourselves? I've gotten all the stuff that needs painted with the brush done, the corners and stuff, so if we both grab a roller and get to it we could probably have this place done by the time Jamie finishes school."

"Ooh, a challenge?" Nathan questioned. "You sure you're up for that? That's only 2 hours away."

"I think we can handle it!" I said, springing up. "Let's do it."

"Okay, come on." He put some more paint in the tray before handing me a roller. "You're sure I can trust you with this?"

"Depends if you behave yourself," I grinned, before turning to the wall and getting on with painting.

After a few moments of silence, Nathan paused his painting for a second.

"This really is nice, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it is," I said, a huge smile on my face.

Sure, I was still having stupid insecurities, but every day we were taking steps forward, which was pretty much all I could ask for.

* * *

After a while of rigorous painting, the room was completely done.

"Not bad," I commented, standing in the middle of the room admiring our handiwork.

"Not at all! We got a whole room painted in just a couple hours."

"Bearing in mind it's a pretty small room..." I laughed, "Still! I'm impressed this stuff only needs one coat."

"I know, I don't think I could face having to the exact same thing again in a few hours. The parts we did earlier have dried really well."

"Yep! Right, should probably think about going to pick up Jamie," I said, looking at the clock on the bedside table in the middle of the room. "Think I'll get myself a snack before I go, want one?" I left the room and took off downstairs.

"Uh, Hales?" I heard Nathan call out from behind me upstairs.

"Yeah?"

"You gonna have a shower first?"

I realised I was still covered in paint and burst out laughing. I went back upstairs.

"Yeah, that might be a good idea." We both smiled before we made a start for our bedroom, then paused.

"Um... I can, er, use the other bathroom," he said awkardly. "I'll just... get my stuff from in here?"

"Yeah, yeah that's fine."

God this was so awkward. If this had been six months ago we'd have been hopping into the shower together.

I waited in our bedroom while he got his shampoo and stuff from our en suite.

When he emerged, he handed something to me.

"Here, it'll help get the paint out. Maybe don't use it on your face though," he said, motioning to the bit of paint at the side of my chin.

I laughed. "Thanks."

* * *

We had both gone to pick Jamie up from school together after our showers. When we showed Jamie the work we'd done in the spare bedroom when we arrived home we didn't exactly receive the praise we were hoping for. I guess a new colour in a room that he rarely went into wasn't too exciting for a four-year-old.

Dinner was spent with Jamie telling us all about his day. There was hardly a space for Nathan and me to get a word in, so we just let him talk. That's what we loved doing, anyway. Sitting there while our son happily talked about school and his friends and how he was bringing in Chester for show-and-tell and about who he wanted to invite to his impending birthday party.

After dinner Jamie brought some of his toys downstairs to the living room so we could all just sit in there together. For a while I played on the floor with Jamie while Nathan watched some TV. He had attempted to come and play with us, but I wouldn't let him sit on the floor bending over to look at the toys - his back had been through enough for the day. He told me I was just worrying over nothing, which was probably true, but I wasn't taking any chances. If little things like that were going to prevent Nathan's back from deteriorating, I was going to continue to do them.

"Hey, so since you guys are leaving me out, want to come sit here with me and watch TV with me?" Nathan asked after about twenty minutes.

"Sure," I smiled. I picked Jamie up and dragged him over to the couch. I pulled the toys over so I could put them back in the box.

The two of them were sitting on the couch and I sat in front of them on the floor, sorting out the toys. I felt something touch my hair. It was Nathan.

An overwhelming calm washed over my entire body.

"You know, Jamie," Nathan started, getting Jamie's attention away from the children's channel Nathan had just stuck on, "When your mom was pregnant with you she would, you know, get a little moody sometimes..."

"Hey!"

I heard laughter in his voice, but I nudged his leg with my elbow all the same. He continued moving his hands through my hair.

They both laughed.

"And sometimes the only thing that would calm her down was if I played with her hair."

"Cool," Jamie said, sitting closer to the front of the couch. I felt his hand in my hair as well. "Soft," he commented.

"Thank you, Jamie." I had just stopped putting the toys back in the box. I was too mesmerised by the calm I felt from Nathan's hands in my hair.

"She's not in a mood now, but since we're sitting like this, want to help me do up mommy's hair?"

"Yeah!" Jamie exclaimed excitedly.

Nathan than began teaching Jamie how to do pleats with different small sections of my hair. I remembered when I was pregnant, sometimes I when I was having mood swings I would just lie or sit somewhere all grumpy and Nathan would cheer me up by simply playing with my hair. He rarely even had to say anything, he just always seemed to know what to do to make me feel better.

I sat there for the next little while as the two people I loved the most in the world silently played with my hair. I had always loved that feeling, even when my sisters did it to me when I was a kid, but there was something so peaceful and amazing about sitting there as Nathan and Jamie softly stroked my hair and put it in pleats or whatever they were doing back there. The feeling of Nathan softly threading his fingers through the strands of my hair made me feel so at peace.

Things maybe weren't moving along quickly, but they were pretty damn good.

* * *

**Thanks for reading! Review! :]**


	13. She Holds A Key

**A/N: **SO I know that after not updating the story for months I'll have lost a lot of people's interest in it. I have my excuses, e.g. being busy some of the time, but the main excuse is purely lack of motivation. I never forgot about this story, and during the past few months when I've not been writing, I've still had my imaginitave head on when it comes to this story - I've thought of so many ideas of stuff to include when I'm in the season 6 zone, and even season 7! Haha. So yeah, sorry for leaving this story for ages, but please know that no matter how long it takes me to update, I will never give up on it unfinished or without letting you guys know. I started this chapter ages ago but just never got round to finishing it, and this week I decided to get down to it and all these little ideas came about for it! So here it is. I plan to take this story a long, long way, no matter how long it takes me!

(Speaking of, I know I've said this in previous updates, but if you guys do/don't want me to take it past episode 5x13 (the next chapter) then let me know. I have ideas of stuff to include for scenes we never got to see in the last half of season 5 and seasons 6 and 7 (and even 8?) and would like to continue on, but if you guys think I should just stick to this four-week gap and finish it after the next chapter or not then let me know in your reviews if you would be so kind! Thanks.)

This chapter is pretty long, but if I had split it where I wanted to then the chapters would have been really uneven lengths. And its ridiculous length means that I can't be bothered to triple-check it, so if there are typos then I do apologise!

This chapter is named after a song by Gavin DeGraw, it's actually heard in the show in episode 5x11.

I hope you enjoy this chapter, it's long and it's the one leading up to the classic 5x13 therapy session (and what follows) ;) that will be in my next update, so hopefully you'll find this somewhat enjoyable during this painfully long hiatus from season 8! Even though this season hasn't been too generous for us Naley fans, I truly have high hopes for the next episode! :)

Even though I was silly and didn't update for ages, I hope you'll still **REVIEW.** Please. Reading those is what makes me want to write as fast as possible. Thank you so much for all the reviews so far! :) Flashbacks are in _italics._

* * *

I brought Jamie downstairs the next morning to find Nathan already awake and fixing up breakfast in the kitchen.

"Morning," he greeted us.

"Hey, you're certainly getting into the swing of making breakfast, aren't you?"

"Well, you gotta do what you gotta do. Come on, enjoy."

We sat at the breakfast counter and spoke as we ate. It felt nice... the past two mornings he'd been home we hadn't been able to do this.

Once Jamie was ready for school we both decided to take him. It's not like it needed to just be one of us.

"Okay, bye kiddo!" I said as Jamie left the car when we'd arrived the school after I'd given him a big kiss. I waited and watched him go into the school, and then took off home. "You don't need to go to the school til afternoon, do you?" I asked Nathan.

"Nope," he replied, looking over at me.

I drove the next few minutes in silence, before Nathan spoke.

"Everything okay?"

He snapped me out of my daze.

"Mm? Yeah, fine."

"Haley, you can't seriously think that's gonna work on me? What's up?"

"Nothing, really," I replied, trying not to look worried.

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

We drew up at the house and I went right inside and put the kettle on. I just needed to keep myself busy.

Nathan walked through from the living room to the breakfast counter.

"Haley?"

"Yeah?"

"If somethings bothering you, talk to me."

I looked at him with a (what I hoped was convincing) smile.

"Yeah, sure," I nodded.

With that, he turned back to the living room. I knew he knew I wasn't being truthful. He knew me too well.

I stayed in the kitchen and drank my coffee as Nathan watched something in the living room. I couldn't really hear what he was watching, but I all of a sudden heard my own voice shrieking.

I walked to the living room to find Nathan watching an old home video of us with Jamie the day he first managed to walk. A huge smile graced my face. That was one of the best days ever. Nathan looked over at me and smiled and then looked back to the TV screen.

_"Jamie! You're doing it!" _

It was me reaching my arms out to Jamie as he slowly made his way towards me, with Nathan holding a hand behind Jamie in case he fell as well as holding the video camera. It was in our old place when we were in our second year of college.

"Feels like yesterday, huh?" Nathan asked as I joined him on the couch.

"It totally does. He is so adorable," I said fondly, sitting down as I continued watching the screen.

We continued watching for a few minutes, when Nathan looked over at me and saw how intently I was watching.

"Haley, are you sure you're okay?"

I looked down and decided I couldn't keep pretending I was okay with what was going through my head that morning - and most other mornings.

I shook my head.

"What is it?" he asked, moving closer to me on the couch. He paused the TV as it landed on a still frame of Jamie walking.

"It's just... every time I drop him off at school I really, really hate it. _So_ much, Nathan," I admitted, looking up at him.

"Hales, have you been feeling like this every morning for the past three weeks?" he asked, sheer concern in his voice.

I looked into his eyes.

"Yeah." I nodded. "It's just... Every time I leave him there I think, 'I'm not going to see him for six hours'. And I hate that thought so much because the last time, other than him being at school, that I've been that long without him, was the day he went missing..."

"Hales," he said, putting his hand on my shoulder comfortingly. "I know what you mean. I do. But you know he's safe there, right?"

"Yeah, I know, otherwise I wouldn't let him out of my sight. I just... hate it."

"I know. I'm not a huge fan of having the boy out of our sight either. But come on, he is going to come home from being at school every day being his usual happy self for years to come, so we might as well get used to having him be without us. Look, it's worse now because you're not working, you're just home without him being here, but once you get back to work things will be better."

"Great, another thing I have to worry about. Work!"

"Haley, that's not what I meant!" he said quickly.

"I know," I assured him. "But I really will have to get back soon. I can't just keep not going."

"You'll go back when you're ready," he said, moving his hand up and down my arm in a reassuring rub. His hands were so warm on my skin... _God_ I loved him.

And I hoped to God he had never doubted that.

I looked up at the TV and saw the still frame of Jamie from a few years ago and smiled. Nathan noticed and grinned.

"Can you believe he's ours?"

"I know," I replied truthfully. "Somedays it seems unreal that I have this gorgeous, perfect son."

"Yeah. We made that. We brought him into this world," Nathan said, gently nudging me with his shoulder.

"Yep. And I can't believe we nearly lost him. Twice," I said, staring at the floor.

"Haley," Nathan said, getting me to turn and face him. "That is _never _going to happen again. Okay? I won't let it," he said, looking me in the eye.

"Promise?" I asked pathetically.

"I promise. Come on," he said, pulling me up off the couch, "Let's keep your mind off it. We can go see how our paintjob is doing!" He picked up the remote and switched the TV off before getting me to come upstairs.

We went into the spare bedroom and took in yesterday's hard work.

"Not bad," I commented, looking at the room. "Doesn't need a second coat!"

"Yep, thank God. Don't think I could take another day of non stop painting," Nathan said.

"Hey, now that it's all done up, you could sleep in here now instead of that couch," I suggested. I figured it would be more comfortable for him not only because of his back, but just because being in a bed was a lot better than a couch.

He looked a bit hesitant at my suggestion, and looked up at me as if to make sure he'd heard me properly.

"Uh, yeah, I guess so," he replied looking a bit uncertain.

"Well, not tonight obviously, the place is still stinks of paint fumes," I stated, assuming that was the reason he was unsure about it. "Maybe tomorrow night."

"Yeah, great." He didn't seem too enthusiastic, but then I figured that it probably wasn't the most exciting decision.

* * *

Haley and I had spent the entire afternoon doing various chores... cleaning the car and some rooms inside the house. When it was time to pick up Jamie we both went so she could drop me off at the high school so I could go to afternoon practice.

We were just rounding the corner to Jamie's school when a car that was parked nearby drove quickly past us.

Not quickly enough.

I saw his face, but I wasn't sure if Haley had. When I turned my head towards her to see her looking at me in _that_ way, I could tell she had.

"Dan?" she asked, as though wanting me to confirm what she had just seen.

"Yeah."

"I don't believe it," she sighed, pulling up into a parking spot at Jamie's school.

She always met Jamie at the door with his teacher so that there was no chance of him being outside the school alone.

We got out of the car and saw lots of parents meeting their children as we waited for Jamie.

And waited.

...And waited.

"Where the hell is he?" Haley asked worriedly after a few minutes.

"I... I don't know. Isn't that his teacher talking to those parents over there?"

"Oh my God! She's always with Jamie!" Haley exclaimed. "I have to go ask her..."

"Hales, she's talking to people right now," I said calmly, although I was beginning to panic just as much as she was. I could feel my heart hammering in my chest with worry.

"But..." I could really see the panic in her eyes. Jamie wasn't with his teacher and he wasn't with us. Could he really be with... "Dan?" She said it so suddenly and angrily that it caught me off guard. "Dan! Nathan, we just saw him drive past!"

"Haley, I- I don't know, alright. I'm sure he wouldn't have... Come on, let's go wait to talk to the teacher."

At that moment she walked around the corner to talk to some other people.

"Oh my God!" Haley exclaimed with exasperation. "Where the hell is he? I can't... I can't do this again. You said you would make sure nothing would happen to him!"

Was she really getting angry at ME because of this?

"Haley, I-"

"You said you would make sure we would never have to feel like this again and here we are, worrying about him because your father has probably taken him! Either that or Carrie! Or some other psycho!"

"Haley! Come on, let's just go and talk to someone-"

She immediately backed away from my attempt at a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"Nathan, don't. Find our son and you bring him back to us."

There was no point in me being angry. Hell, I was as worried as her.

"Wait here, in case he comes," I said to her before marching up to his teacher. "Excuse me?" I said, interrupting her conversation.

She seemed a bit put off that I had interrupted, but judging from my panicked tone she decided to listen.

"Yes?"

"_Where_ is my son?" I demanded. "He's supposed to be with you!"

"Jamie? He's, er, I think he's..."

Just as she turned to look at the main door of the school, there he was, walking out with a man I didn't recognise.

"Jamie!" I ran over to him and scooped him up in my arms.

"Everything alright, sir?" the man asked.

"Uh, yeah," I said, tightly embracing Jamie in my arms. "Buddy, why weren't you with your teacher?"

"I was showing Principal Murray my painting!"

"Jamie, please don't make us worry like that again, alright?"

"Alright."

"Jamie!" Haley exclaimed as she ran over, taking him out of my arms and into hers. "Why weren't you with your teacher? You know you're supposed to come out with her every day!"

"Sorry, momma, I was showing Mr Murray my painting!"

"Right. Well let's get you home, come on," she said, putting him down and taking him to the car. I followed quickly after them and got in the front seat.

"You dropping me off at school?" I asked her wearily, aware of her still anxious-looking facial expression.

"Yeah," she replied shortly.

As we drove I noticed her constantly looking in the rearview mirror to look at Jamie. Even though she was acting all weird with me - the car journey was completely silent - I was worried about her. Those few moments we spent today not knowing where Jamie was were enough for her to start worrying about him even more.

"Daddy, how long will you be at practice for?" Jamie said, breaking the silence.

"Uh, probably til about five, Jim-Jam."

"When you get home can we play basketball?"

"Sure we ca-"

"I think you'll maybe play inside tonight, Jamie," Haley interrupted.

"Why?" he questioned.

"Because... I say so."

"Haley," I started, "I know that was kind of scary back there but you can't not let him play outside-"

"Nathan, I'm his mother," she cut in sharply. "I can let him do what I want. That could have... that could have been so much worse."

"But it wasn't-"

"Well we didn't know that, did we? I do _not _want that kind of fear again."

"How, by letting him come outside to play basketball with me?"

"Yes!"

She was starting to piss me off now. Was she really so terrified that she didn't even want him in the back yard with his own father?

She pulled up at Tree Hill High.

"Pick you up at five?" she said in an unenthusiastic tone without looking at me.

"Forget it," I said, undoing my seatbelt. "I'll walk home."

"Fine!"

"Fine!" I retorted, closing the door without saying goodbye to Jamie before walking angrily into the school.

What the hell had just happened? Things were completely fine until we saw Dan. She couldn't possibly be angry with me for Dan being there? It wasn't my fault he was my dad. And, as much as it pissed me off seeing him there, he _hadn't_ taken Jamie.

Was it really because I'd promised her I'd make sure he was alright and a few hours later we were worried about him? Because if so, that was stupid as hell because he'd been at school and I had no control over what Jamie was doing there.

But was she really angry with me? I wasn't sure. She could have just been taking her anger at the situation out on me. I just didn't know. This day just seemed to be full of knock-backs from the progress I thought we'd been making... earlier when she told me I should start sleeping in the spare bedroom I was a bit disappointed. It seemed to mean that she wasn't exactly going to be ready to have me in our bed any time soon if she wanted me to take up residence in the spare bedroom.

I could barely even concentrate at practice; all I could think about was Haley. But I wasn't mad at her anymore... I was mad at myself for being short with her. She'd been through hell recently and she had just thought she'd maybe lost her son _again _and was worried about him and all I did was make it worse! What the hell was wrong with me? Why couldn't I show just the slightest compassion to her after being in such a vulnerable state, even if it was only for five minutes? Why did I have to slam the car door in her face? I think the guys definitely noticed that I wasn't really myself at practice.

When it was finally over I got out of there as soon as possible. I just wanted to get home and make sure Haley knew I wasn't mad at her, and that I was sorry. I left the gym and crossed the car park in a hurry, when suddenly a pair of headlights of a parked car lit up on my left hand side. I looked over, and there was Haley in our SUV, smiling sheepishly over at me. I couldn't help but let the same type of grin spread on my face.

I walked over and opened the door.

"I thought I was walking home?"

"Nah," she said, motioning her head for me to get in. "Couldn't be worrying about both my boys in one day."

I smiled and got in the car as we drove home, during which journey Jamie would not shut up.

* * *

I felt terrible for being all snarky with Nathan earlier. I knew I was being stupid and overprotective, but _of course _I had to go and make Nathan feel bad and storm out of the car. He had every right to be mad at me.

I could tell he wanted to talk to me on the car ride home after practice, so did I, but we couldn't really have much of a conversation when Jamie was there. Besides, we could hardly get a word in edgeways with him chattering away. We could both tell the other was sorry, though.

But I still wanted him to hear from me that I had over-reacted and owed him an apology.

After dinner, which, again, was taken up by Jamie and his conversations about school and his friends, he insisted on us helping him make a painting for him to give to Lauren, his teacher, at the kitchen table.

"I want to paint her a cat, she really likes them," Jamie said as I got some paint out at the table.

"Well then buddy, let's make her a nice big cat!" Nathan said, setting out a piece of paper.

I sat down next to Jamie, Nathan on his other side, and got a brush ready for Jamie to use. Once he began painting, I looked up at Nathan to see him looking at me as well.

"Nathan, I'm really sorry about earlier today," I said as Jamie got on with his picture. "I was out of line, I just want you to know that I'm sorry."

"What? Hales, come on, it's me who's sorry. You were terrified that... you know, again, and to be honest so was I. And I should have respected that more instead of getting angry. I don't want you thinking I think that you're an overprotective parent, you're an amazing mom and-"

"Nathan," I interruped, laughing at his rambling. "It's okay. I honestly don't know why I was acting like such a baby. It wasn't your fault, and I would never not let Jamie out back with you. I was just really..."

"Yeah, I know. It's okay." He smiled at me. God, that smile. I remembered it making me weak at the knees back when we first met, and that hadn't changed. I loved him so much.

Nathan started helping Jamie make his cat look... well, more cat-like (it was looking more like a brown blob). I just sat there and watched. Father and son. It warmed my heart so much. It always had, everytime I watched the two of them together.

After a few minutes of silence and painting, I spoke.

"You know how you just said I was a good mom?"

"I think the correct word was 'amazing', but yes," he said with a grin.

I smiled at that. "Yeah. Well, so are you."

"I'm an amazing mom?"

"You're an amazing _dad_, smartass," I laughed.

"Smart-what? You know, I might have to take back what I said about you being an amazing mother if you keep up that kind of language around our son," he joked, signalling his head to Jamie as he continued helping him with his painting.

"Oops. Sorry, Jamie," I said, kissing the top of his head.

"What for?"

"Not even listening to his parents," Nathan sighed jokingly.

"Wonder how that's going to treat us when he's a teenager?" I asked, before noticing Nathan's attempt at giving the cat eyes. "Nathan..."

"Yeah?"

"I thought we were supposed to be helping him with this picture, not destroying it?" I said, pointing to the blue blobs on the brown head that were supposed to be eyes.

"Oh, you think you can do better?" he teased, handing me his brush.

I hesitated, knowing that I wasn't exactly THE greatest artist, but helping out with a 4-year-old's painting was surely within my artistic ability. It probably was the peak of it though.

"Fine!" I said, reaching for the brush, before he quickly pulled it away again.

"Daddy, why aren't you giving momma the brush?" Jamie asked innocently, making us both smile.

"Yeah _daddy_, why not?"

"Because, _mom_, I'm not sure I can trust you with it after what happened the last time I gave you one."

I remembered that paint fight and smiled.

"Hmm. Well if I can make this picture somehow resemble a cat, then you'll be safe. But with my artistic skills, I'd watch your back," I joked, snatching the brush from him and fixing the cat's eyes.

We finished up the picture and I set it on the shelf above the heater to dry.

"Momma, I'm tired," Jamie spoke up.

"Really sweetie? Well, so am I, I think we'll just go up to bed together, how's that sound?"

I glanced up to see Nathan looking at me knowingly.

"You're tired, huh?"

"Um..."

"Hales," he said softly, walking over to me. "You don't have to pretend with me. After today, I don't blame you for wanting to be with him all the time."

Him understanding me so well just warmed my heart even more - he knew I wasn't going to bed with Jamie because I was tired, but because I wanted to watch over him. It was stupid and far too overprotective, which Nathan knew, but he didn't tell me not to. He knew I needed this.

But him saying that he didn't blame me made me think that he wished he could go to bed with him too, which just made me feel more guilty for not taking that step yet. I knew I shouldn't feel guilty, but I couldn't help it.

"Yeah. Thanks. Well... we're off to bed."

* * *

"Nathan?"

He slowly opened his eyes. It was still dark. I was sitting on the coffee table opposite the couch, rubbing his arm to wake him up.

"Hey, what's going on?" he asked as he sat up. "Everything okay? Jamie okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, everything's fine," I replied calmly.

"What time is it?"

"Around two, Jamie woke me with one of his thousand kicks," I smiled. "Hey, I'm sorry for waking you-"

"No, don't be," he said, shaking his head and sitting up properly.

"I just couldn't really get back to sleep after I woke up. Nathan, I... I really am sorry about earlier today," I said, looking him in the eye.

"Hey, Haley, if anyone should be apologising it should be me. I got all angry when I shouldn't have, I'm really sorry. You have nothing to apologise for," he said firmly.

He always tried to get his apologies across as much as possible. He wanted me to know that he never meant to cause me any pain or heartache. He'd apologised about this, about Carrie, and about those four months he was in a dark place.

_I was washing the plates in the kitchen, tears brimming in my eyes._

_Happy tears._

_That was the first time that had happened in months. For four months, every single tear had been one of utter sadness. Nathan had totally shut out Jamie and I, and it was awful. I tried to remain strong, but there was only so much one heart could take. I just waited for him to get better. And for four long months, that day never came. _

_A few nights previously, I'd had enough. There was no point waiting around any more. He hadn't even come to Jamie's race when he had wanted so badly for his dad to see him race, which was odd because the day before that, they had spent a lot of time together. So I shouted at him; I broke things; I lost it. And he came around. He started using his crutches, he slept in our bed, he did physical therapy, he stopped drinking. But he still wouldn't really communicate with me properly._

_Until today. He had prepared a dinner for me when I came home, home from a day that had been so stressful during which I couldn't help but think that when I got home, the stress wouldn't be over because things would still be strange with Nathan. _

_But no._

_The moment I walked in the room and saw them; Nathan's face without all that hair covering up the beauty of it, Jamie sitting proudly, Nathan standing up, telling me things would be different from now on... it warmed my heart so much. I was so surprised, but so happy at the same time._

_And here I was, washing the dishes of our first proper family meal in four months. I was getting weepy over washing dishes. This had been some day._

_I put the last plate on the drying rack when I heard Nathan walking up to me in the kitchen. And by walking, I mean using the counters to lean on to slowly make his way over. I looked up at him._

_"Come sit with me," he said softly, looking right into my eyes. I looked back into his. God, it felt so good to be looked at like that again. His eyes were so beautiful. _

_I nodded my head and gave him my hand for support for making our way back to the couch._

_"Where are your crutches?"_

_"I want to try and get used to not being dependent on them," he answered as we made it to the couch._

_"Yeah, good idea. I don't want you hurting yourself, though," I told him._

_"Yeah, I'll be fine. But Haley... It's me who doesn't want to be hurting you. I've never wanted that, ever."_

_I opened my mouth to say something, but he gave me that look to show that he really wanted me to hear what he had to say._

_"I know that four the past few months, I've been an ass. I've been a total asshole and I've treated you and Jamie poorly. And I can't excuse that. But I want you to know, that every time I drank, or snapped at you, or ignored you... it wasn't to hurt you. I just got so deep in my depression over losing basketball, that everything else was just kind of... there. At first all I wanted to do was just numb the pain of losing my dream, so I drank and threw my trophies around and watched the draft tape and didn't want to talk about it. With anyone. I wish to God I had opened up about it and not let it get as far as it did, but I didn't. And I am so sorry for that, Haley."_

_My eyes were filling with tears. He continued._

_"But then I started to realise what I was doing to you and Jamie; how upset you were, how ignored you must have felt, how... scared you must have been." _

_It felt strange hearing him say exactly what we'd been feeling when we hadn't even told him. I didn't think he'd really paid much attention to us. He continued._

_"But I couldn't just get over losing basketball and pretend everything was alright. So instead of doing that, I just felt guilty. I felt so, so guilty. The reason I drank became less about numbing the pain of losing basketball, but more about numbing the guilt I felt about how I was treating you and Jamie. It was obviously not the smart way to deal with it, but I didn't know what to do. I felt like since I'd fallen so far, there was nothing I COULD do. So my anger became less about me being angry at myself for getting into that fight at the bar and more about being angry at myself for how I'd been treating you. I felt so, so angry with myself for letting myself do this to you. But when you tried to speak to me, I just..." _

_His face became even more sorry-looking than it had before._

_"...I just didn't know how to act. You were hurt and confused about me acting like that, and I didn't want to face that. Every time I looked at you, I saw how hurt you were and seeing that hurt me more than a shard of glass in my spine. So I didn't want to discuss things. I know that's selfish and I should have put you first, but I didn't think you deserved some jackhole moaning about how sorry he was; the only person who deserved more hurt was me. So I kept drinking, I kept slipping deeper and deeper. It just became, like, a cycle. I'd feel so terrible for mistreating you that I'd keep drinking, and then I'd realise that it wasn't helping and was actually making things worse, but I just couldn't face and it made me feel worse, so it continued. And I am so, so sorry for that Haley. Every day - scratch that, every second - all I wanted was to have things be better. But every second I was also regretting everything that had happened to my career. So I just wallowed in self-pity. I felt sorry for myself. For losing basketball and... for losing you. Even though it was all my fault." _

_He had been looking at me the whole time during this speech, and tears had begun rolling down my face. And during that last part about him "losing me", I could see he was fighting them back as well._

_"God, Nathan," I whispered. "I had no idea how you were feeling. I wish you would have talked to me..."_

_"So do I," he assured me. "You tried to so many times. I am so, so sorry I didn't. I will never forgive myself for putting you through all this," he said, shaking his head while looking at the ground._

_"Nathan..." I whispered._

_He looked up at me._

_"I forgive you." _

_He looked shocked, but I continued. _

_"It hurt me, Nathan, it really hurt me. It still hurts me to think about what me and Jamie went through, and things aren't just going to suddenly be the same all of a sudden..." _

_Nathan nodded while looking down at the floor._

_"But today," I continued, "at that dinner table with Jamie... it was the happiest all three of us have been in four months. The way you are with him... it's been so long since I've seen you guys together. I knew you were spending time with him last week, but I never actually got to properly see the way you are with him. You're an amazing dad and seeing that side of you after four months of you not talking to him as much as you should have... it warmed my heart. At that dinner table tonight, I saw you again. The real you. The Nathan I fell in love with. For the past few months, you were so different. You were just so cold and closed off. But today... and what you just said... I forgive you. I do, Nathan. And if I forgive you, you have to forgive yourself. I don't want this hanging over you, like you feel you owe me something. I mean, it'll take me some time to completely get over it, but..."_

_"Hales... You're amazing. You are truly the most amazing person on this planet. I don't deserve you," he said, fiddling with a lock of my hair. _

_"Don't say that, Nathan."_

_"I really don't. I never have. Especially not now. But I've got you. You're here. I've got you and Jamie, and that's all I need. If it wasn't for you two, I would probably never have gotten out of that dark place."_

_"Nathan, you would..."_

_"I probably wouldn't have," he quickly corrected me. "Every day I wanted to be better just so I could be with you and Jamie properly. And that night, when you told me I would have nothing if I didn't pull my act together... I got scared. I got scared that you and Jamie would leave, and that thought scared me a hundred times more than losing basketball ever has. Every day during the past four months I woke up and felt depressed about basketball and myself and how I was treating you... but I still knew that I had you guys here. I know that sounds selfish, but I knew that there was still some form of positivity somewhere in my life. I just had nothing to offer you guys. And when I told you that night that I had nothing, I didn't mean that I didn't have you and Jamie. When you corrected me, I felt terrible because I knew you must have felt as though I didn't realise you and Jamie were still here. But what I meant was that I had nothing to GIVE. I had you, I had Jamie, I had friends, but I didn't have anything myself to offer. I had become pathetic, I didn't have basketball anymore, I couldn't walk... I was just a loser in a wheelchair who had nothing to offer himself or his family. But that wake up call you gave me about staying the way I was and ending up having nothing at all... it scared me to all hell. So when I asked to take Jamie out that night, it was to try and talk to him about being scared. I didn't want my son to grow up to be the coward his dad was."_

_The tears continued rolling down my face. They were a mixture of sadness at hearing what had been going through Nathan's mind during the past few months - I had had absolutely no idea - and of happiness at the fact he was recovering and actually sharing all of this with me. I was speechless. I just looked at him, looking right back at me._

_"You're not a coward," was all I could say. "You're amazing."_

_"Hales, please don't say that, I don't deserve it-"_

_"You do," I said. "As hurt as I was that night when you said you had nothing, hearing you say now that you didn't actually mean you felt like you didn't have me and Jamie... it just..." I sighed. "It just shows me that you didn't change as much as I thought you had. It felt like the only emotions you had for the past few months were anger and self-pity... I had no idea about the guilt you felt, or the way you felt about yourself or about me and Jamie."_

_We continued talking, which eventually led Nathan to want to stop talking about himself. He asked me how things had been going with me during the months he didn't care to ask. I got some wine and I told him how teacher training had been, how I'd felt during those four months, how Jamie had been, and then the conversation became more light hearted, like how we used to be, about how Brooke and Peyton had come home, about my first few days as a teacher and about Quentin._

_"Wow, you're like the mean teacher," Nathan smiled. "That's hot."_

_As strange as it felt for Nathan to be talking like that to me again... I loved it. I didn't feel ready to be intimate with him again yet, we still had issues to get through and had to let time help us recover, but nothing had changed about the way I felt about Nathan - I still loved him. In fact, I think I loved him even more after everything he had said that night._

_I noticed Jamie come into the room. _

_"Well well, don't you think it's a little past your bedtime, mister?"_

_"I think so," Jamie said in the most adorable voice ever._

_Nathan chuckled._

_"I'll tell you what. Since it's a special occasion, I think we should stay up a little later tonight," Nathan said. "Unless you're too tired," he added, knowing what the answer would be._

_"No, I'm not tired!" was the immediate reply we expected._

_"Okay, come here," I said, getting him up on my lap._

_"Well, I was thinking, maybe we could go outside and shoot around with this thing, huh?" Nathan said, leaning over the side of the couch to pick up Jamie's basketball. I smiled in surprise as I looked at Jamie, then back at the ball. Nathan had been adamant since Jamie had gotten the ball and hoop that he didn't want Jamie playing basketball, but now... he'd obviously realised how stupid that was. It made me so happy to see him recover._

_"I don't know..." Jamie said hesitantly._

_"Yeah, I don't really know either..."_

_"No, I wanna play!" Jamie exclaimed as he jumped off my lap._

_Nathan and him started playing with the ball, before eventually taking the game outside. As I watched them, my heart swelled in my chest. I was so happy._

_Over the next few days, our alone time in the evenings were dedicated to talking about everything. We just wanted nothing to be left unsaid, so we both shared our thoughts and feelings on everything that happened and was happening. He told me that he had gone to see Dan in prison, and that he didn't want to tell me because he felt stupid for doing it, but he wanted to tell me so there would be no secrets between us. Things continued to improve, with Nathan not missing any opportunities to tell me how sorry he was and how he would do anything to make it up to me._

_"I don't want to make excuses for my behaviour, I just want you to understand that I never stopped loving you and Jamie, and that I never wanted to hurt you."_

_When he said things like that it just made me love him that little bit more, if that was possible. He wasn't brushing the issue under the carpet, he wasn't making excuses, he wasn't trying to tell me how I should react to all of this... he just told me that he was sorry and tried to help me understand that he never intented to hurt us. After a few nights of talking about it, things started getting even better. We spoke everything through so that nothing would be hanging over our heads._

_And when Nathan assured me that we would get back to the couple we used to be, I could not resist him. I'd been resisting the temptation to kiss him for the few days before because I was still in a pretty vulnerable state and hadn't been quite ready, but in that moment, hearing him say that he knew we were going to make our way back... I realised there was no point in being scared. I kissed him with all the passion I had in me. I loved him so much. Sex maybe wasn't on the cards yet, but if things kept improving at the rate they were going, I was going to feel myself ready any day soon. _

_His words of apology were never desperate or needy; just sincere._

And right now was no exception. Nathan was apologising for how he acted earlier that day at the school, saying that it wasn't me who needed to apologise.

"No, but I do-" I interrupted him.

"Hales, you don't-"

"Nathan, please, I want to say this," I interrupted. "A lot of stuff that's happened lately... I feel like you're putting so much blame on yourself, and I don't want that. Especially when you're not to blame. Today... I was a bitch."

He laughed at that part, which made me smile.

"I was," I continued, "And I am sorry. You know that I wouldn't grudge you spending time with Jamie without me, right?"

"Of course."

"Because I really hope it didn't come across as me not trusting you. Because I do, Nathan, and I don't want you doubting that. And you shouldn't apologise for being angry, I don't blame you for getting angry at all. I was behaving like a child and I shouldn't have spoken to you like that."

"Haley, it's okay."

"It's not..."

"It is. Now shh," he teased.

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure. We both over-reacted a bit, but it was a pretty scary situation, so I think we can be excused."

He always knew what to say.

"Well, seeing as we're apologising..."

"What now?" he teased, smiling and raising his eyebrows.

I smiled, but it was something I actually did want to apologise for.

"I... I'm sorry for getting you to come to the therapy sessions, Nathan, I know they make you uncomfortable."

He looked a bit shocked.

"Haley... I will admit that I feel a bit uncomfortable in there, but please don't be sorry for that. I agreed to it, you didn't force me. I think us being put somewhere where we can get all our feelings and issues out in the open and spoken about is a good thing."

"I know, and I'm glad you agree, it's just... every time we go in there I see the look on your face and I hate the thought that going in there reminds you of your parents..."

"Hales, don't feel bad, okay? It feels a bit weird being in a place like that, especially since the last time was because of my mom and dad's stupid marriage troubles and it didn't help them. But I can see that going there is helping us, Haley. I don't necessarily think that if we didn't go then we wouldn't move forward, but the questions she asks kind of makes us get our feelings out there, which I think is a good thing and gets us moving forward quicker than we would without her asking us those questions."

I sighed with relief.

"Yeah, me too. I really think she's helping."

"So, about Thursday's session," Nathan started.

"What about it?"

"Well, it's at 1 o'clock. We won't be able to pick up Jamie."

"Damn it," I whispered. "I did realise that a couple days ago but forgot to do anything about it. Shit! What will we do? The traffic always sucks at that time of day, and being at the complete opposite end of the town from his school doesn't help. I could call and ask for a different appointment?"

"Or," Nathan began. "We could get someone else to pick him up?"

My eyes widened with shock, and as soon as I did so he continued talking.

"Hear me out. I know today was scary, and neither of us are really over what happened at Luke's wedding. But we can't be like this forever, Hales. We need to be able to not have him in our sight at all times. We have plenty of friends who would be willing to look after Jamie. I mean, the other night, Brooke stayed with him upstairs all night. They get along great. Think about it," he said, knowing that I was very hesitant about it.

I sighed.

"Okay, I'll think about it."

"Good," he smiled.

That smile.

"But hey," he said, "He's not in your sight right now and you're doing fine."

"Mm," she replied. "I felt weird about leaving the bedroom, but I wanted to come and talk to you."

"I'm glad," Nathan said, sitting forward to give me a hug. I leaned forward from the coffee table and wrapped my arms around him and hugged him tight. I felt his face nuzzle in my hair. I loved that feeling so much.

After a few moments he pulled back and smiled.

"I guess we'd probably better get some sleep," he said. "Besides, I can tell how much you want to go back upstairs to Jamie," he grinned.

"Right," I smiled. "I'll go back upstairs," I said as I stood up.

"You know that you can talk to me any time, right? If I'm sleeping, if I'm at practice, if I'm watching TV, if I'm... well, I don't do much else," he laughed. "But you can always talk to me. Whatever I'm doing, you come first. Always. You and Jamie."

God, he was so amazing. And I knew he meant every word.

"Yeah," I nodded. "Thanks. Night."

* * *

The next morning I got Jamie ready for school without waking Nathan. He was still sound asleep on the couch, so I left him to it seeing as it was my fault he'd gotten less sleep than he should have done.

"I'm going to give Miss Lauren my painting today, momma!" Jamie said as he finished up his breakfast.

"Ooh, good idea," I said, reaching over to where we'd set it last night. It was some cat. The eyes were definitely the best part.

"Think she'll like it?"

"I think she'll love it," I assured him.

"She'll definitely love it," Nathan said as he emerged from the living room.

"Morning sleepy head," I teased.

"Morning," he said as he walked over to Jamie and ruffled his hair. "I'll just go get dressed and I can come with you when you put him to school," he said to me.

"Well, it's okay, you don't have to come. I think we're pretty much all set!"

"Okay, well, if you're sure?" he said, looking at me with a concerned face. I wasn't really sure why.

"Yes, I'm sure," I smiled, but with a questioning tone because I didn't see where the concern was coming from.

"Good, okay, it's just... yesterday, you..."

"Ah, right." I got him now. Yesterday he'd seen me all freaking out about leaving Jamie at school, and was worried I'd be the same today. "Nathan, I'll be fine, seriously. We should probably get going now, but when I get back I'm gonna get ready for going to the label, because Peyton and I are meeting with Mia's mom."

"Cool, how come?" he asked.

"I think she just sorta wants to thank us for helping Mia, and she said she wants to plan some sort of surprise for the show that's on her birthday and wants our advice or help, or something," I told him.

"Nice."

"Yep. Right, come on Jim-Jam, we gotta get going!" I said, passing him his backpack. "See you soon," I said to Nathan before heading out the door.

* * *

When Haley was putting Jamie to school I went upstairs and got ready for the day. I heard Haley come home after about ten minutes, and then heard her calling my name.

"Nathan! Naaathan!"

I rushed downstairs to see what the problem was, and when I went into the kitchen Haley had her head in the cabinet under the sink.

"What's up?" I asked, relieved that nothing bad had happened.

"I think the pipe's leaking," she said, taking her head out of the cabinet and standing up. "You know how to fix it right?"

She looked at me, expecting me to say 'of course!'. I was _not _much of a handiman.

"Um..."

She smiled.

"Come on, try it. Did you not manage to fix a pipe in our college apartment?"

"That was Lucas," I reminded her. "All I did was hand him the tools."

"Oh," she laughed. "Well it can't be that hard. Anyway, could you take a look at it? I need to go get ready for meeting Mia's mom."

"What's wrong with how you look now?" I asked, genuinely wondering. She was perfect, she always was.

"I just want to look good for the sake of the label, to give Mia's mom a good impression," she answered.

"Right," I said. "Although I'm sure her mom's just grateful for you being you, not you wearing whatever you wear," I said with a smile, moving past her to get to the sink.

She paused for a minute before saying:

"Whatever. Right. I'll go get ready, good luck with the pipe!" she said before going upstairs.

I didn't know why she felt the need to change clothes or put make up on or fix her hair or whatever, because she was gorgeous just the way she was. She looked beautiful no matter what she was wearing, but I was always attracted to her the most when she had no make up on and was wearing casual clothes. It reminded me of when she tutored me, when we first got together, when I fell for her. She wore make up sometimes but she never felt the need to try hard or impress people. She impressed me by just being her.

I decided to try and tackle this pipe. I fetched the toolbox and sat in front of the sink. I had no idea what the hell to do. The bit where it was joined together and faced another direction was a bit slack, and had a small hole in it that was causing some water to leak out. I figured if I just tightened it up with a wrench or spanner or whatever it was, the hole would be covered up. It looked pretty simple. Who knew.

I took the spanner that looked the right size and twisted part of the pipe. Nothing happened. It looked like it was going to take some force. I used both hands and forced the pipe to tighten.

I think I turned it the wrong way.

Water started spraying right at me from the hole. It sprayed hard.

The hole was actually a lot bigger than I thought. Turned out most of it was covered up by the other piece of pipe it was attached to, and instead of tightening it I had managed to loosen it, causing the water to spray directly onto my face.

I tried to cover it up with my hands but all that managed to do was make the water squirt in loads of different directions between my fingers.

"Damn it!"

The tap wasn't even on but the water kept spraying right at me, soaking me. How was that even possible?

"Hey, I look okay for meeting the mother of..." I heard Haley say while coming into the kitchen before she burst out laughing.

"A little help?" I asked, struggling to surpress the water from leaking out of the pipe.

"Nathan!" she laughed as she walked over to a drawer in the kitchen. "Here." She ripped off a piece of duct tape and handed it to me. I put it over the hole and it managed to stop the spraying. There was still some water leaking out, but it was just dripping down, not covering me with dirty sink water.

"Thank you," I sighed as I stood up, laughing.

I wasn't laughing as much as Haley though. She seemed to find it hilarious and she was still laughing.

"Nathan, what are you like? You're soaked!" she said, still laughing, feeling my T-shirt that was absolutely soaked through.

I pulled the T-shirt off over my head, before her hands felt my hair.

"God, even your hair is..."

We could both feel it. I was soaked, shirtless, and she had her hands were stroking my hair.

"...soaked," she finished quietly, taking back her hand from feeling my hair.

"Er, I should probably go get another shirt," I said, to break the small moment of silence.

"Right."

"And you look beautiful," I added quickly, before kissing the top of her head and walking upstairs.

* * *

As Peyton and I sat through our meeting with Mrs Catalano, I couldn't really concentrate. I mean, I listened to what she said and tried to help her plan the surprise she wanted to happen when Mia played Jersey on her birthday, but my head wasn't really fully into it. My head was far too busy thinking about Nathan.

It was ridiculous how much I loved him. I just loved him SO much. And having just seen him all wet and sexy and laughing and me touching him and his hair... God damn. As if that wasn't enough to send my heart into overdrive, he called me beautiful and kissed the top of my head. I could still sort of feel it, on my hair on the top of my head. It felt amazing.

Was I being pathetic?

The answer was probably yes, but I didn't care.

When Mia's mom left, I was still thinking about Nathan. We had a therapy session tomorrow... I hoped that that would set things going to really get us back on track. I knew it was me who was sort of holding us back. I was so in love with him and I just wanted to rip off his clothes, but I just couldn't quite get my heart there to actually do it, to be intimate with him. Well, I probably could have, because I loved him and wanted him so much. But it wouldn't have felt right. I didn't want ANYTHING hanging over us when we went fully back to being us again. There was still that teeny bit of the wall to break down.

"What you thinking about?" Peyton said, interrupting my thoughts.

"Oh, nothing really," I replied.

"Mhmm? You were smiling..."

"I'm just... happy we helped Mia's mom out," I said. I didn't really feel like announcing my thoughts about Nathan. Especially the ones that had arisen from me seeing him all wet this morning.

"Sure," she said, unconvinced. "Right, I'm gonna go to the store and pick some things up, I'll come back before I head home though. You need anything?"

"Nope, I'm good," I answered. "See you!"

I went through to Peyton's desk and sat in the chair for a little while. I heard the door open and assumed it was Peyton, so I just stayed there.

"Hey," I heard Nathan's voice say. I looked up to see him coming through the door carrying a paper bag.

"Hey!" I greeted him. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, I got a bit bored so I thought I'd bring you some lunch," he said, holding up the bag. "Fancy it?"

"Hell yeah!" I exclaimed, noticing that the bag was take-out from one of my favourite cafes.

"I got you your usual," he said, handing me my favourite sandwich and pasta box.

"Ooh, thank you," I smiled, tucking in.

"So," he said, taking out his own lunch and two bottles of water for us, "How did it go with Mia's mom?"

"Oh, it was good, she was really nice. We've gotten the tour guys to arrange this whole big surprise for her birthday the night she plays a show in Jersey, her mom's heading over there for it. She seemed sweet."

"That is sweet. I'm sure she was really thankful to you guys, though."

"Yeah, she was. It feels good knowing you've helped someone."

"Then you must feel good a hell of a lot," Nathan said with a grin.

"What do you mean?"

"You help people all the time," he said, as though it was obvious.

"What?"

"Come on."

"Who are you thinking of?"

"Well, me, for starters," he said. "Then there's Jamie, there's Lucas, there's Peyton..."

"Wait, when did I help them?"

"Just by being there for them, for being an amazing friend, for supporting them..."

I smiled.

"Well, what can I say. I am kind of awesome," I joked.

"That you are," Nathan said with a smile, but I knew he was being serious.

"So," I said, diverting the attention away from any more complements, "How did it go with the leaky pipe?"

"Oh," he said with a laugh. "Just great. Well, I fixed it, sort of. I tightened the pipe around the duct tape, so we'll just have to see if it stays."

I laughed.

"I'm sure it'll be fine," I commented.

"Well, we can get Lucas to do it properly when he comes back. Whenever that is..."

"I know. I hope he's feeling better when he comes back," I said. "He hasn't even called."

"I wouldn't be worried, he probably just doesn't have cell phone reception on Andy's boat. It's been almost four weeks, though, you'd think he'd be home soon," Nathan said.

"I know," I agreed. "It feels weird not having him around."

We spent the rest of our lunch talking about Lucas and the whole Lindsey/Peyton debacle before Peyton came in. Time for that discussion to end.

"Oh, hey Nate," Peyton said, making eyes at me.

"Hey," Nathan returned.

"Look, I'm just gonna head home now, but Haley, I'll see you later," she said with a wink before heading out of the office.

* * *

Later that day when Jamie was home from school and Nathan had just come home from basketball practice and we had finished dinner, it was time to relax.

"Can I bring a game downstairs, momma?"

"Sure, how about Spelling Bee?" I suggested. It was a game where there were bee-shaped tiles that had letters on them and you had to spell out words.

"My favourite!" he exclaimed before running off upstairs to get it.

"My God, he really did get your nerd genes," Nathan grinned from the other end of the couch.

"Hey, there's nothing wrong with being a nerd," I defended, but knowing he was just joking.

"Definitely not,"

"Of course not, I've got you for proof of that," he smiled.

I felt myself blush. I couldn't help it.

"Got it!" Jamie exclaimed as he ran in the room with the game box.

"Excellent," I answered as I sat down on the floor ready to play it with him.

"Do you wanna play, daddy?" Jamie asked, looking over at him.

"Sure," he said, and joined us on the floor.

Jamie emptied all the letter tiles on the floor and gave half the pictures of things he was supposed to spell out to me and half to Nathan.

"Right," Nathan started. "Spell 'hat'."

And so the game went on for a little while, with plenty of amusement for not only Jamie but me and Nathan.

Twenty minutes later, it was one of Nathan's turns to ask Jamie to spell something.

"Okay, spell... koala?"

"Nathan, that's a dog," I corrected him laughing. "He's a genius, but he is only four."

"Hey, it's not a very good picture, alright?" he laughed, holding up the dog. I had no idea how he'd mistaken that for a koala.

Jamie began setting out the letter tiles when all of a sudden we were surrounded by darkness. All the lights went off, as did the light that indicated the TV was on standby mode.

"Woah!" exclaimed Jamie.

"It's okay little man, it's just a blackout," I said, hugging him close to me. It was pitch black, completely dark. I could hardly see anything.

"I'll go light some candles," Nathan said, standing up. "If I can find them." He took his phone out of his pocket and used the dim light from that to help him find his way to the kitchen.

He returned with one lit candle and a couple of unlit ones, plus some matches. He set them up and as he lit each one we were given a little more light.

"Now, you don't touch those candles daddy's working with, okay?" I told Jamie.

"Okay," he said, still staring at them. "They smell nice," he commented.

"Yep," Nathan said, having just lit the last one. "There we go, nice and light. You okay, Jamie?"

"Yep!"

"Okay, good," Nathan laughed. "Well it's a bit dark to keep playing this," he said, motioning to the game.

"What do people do during blackouts?" I asked. "I've been through approximately four in my entire life, two of which I can't remember and the other two..."

Well, the other two included a) the power in our apartment going off because we didn't have enough money to pay the electricity bill and b) the night of the storm after Nathan and I had gotten back together and we spent the whole night talking and making out in the rain and having sex. That was one of the best nights of my life. One of many amazing nights with Nathan, but that one just felt really special.

"The other two...?" Nathan said, knowing I wouldn't answer seeing as he already knew.

"Well, whatever. Maybe we could tell stories? Sound good Jamie?"

"Yeah!"

"Great, you got any good ones?" Nathan asked, coming closer to where Jamie and I were all cuddled up.

The next little while was spent with Jamie telling us some stories he'd learned about at school, before I decided to tell him the story of Jack in the Beanstalk.

Just as I was finishing the story, the lights flickered before coming back on.

"Aww!" Jamie exclaimed.

"What, you liked it with the lights off, buddy?" Nathan asked.

"Yeah," he said, his eyes drooping.

"You look tired, Jame," I told him and getting him to face me properly. "I think it's maybe bedtime!"

"Mm."

"I think the darkness and the storytelling must have tired him out!" Nathan said as he stood up.

"We're gonna have to get you lots of sleep so you're ready for show and tell tomorrow!"

"And Chester," Jamie said drowsily.

* * *

Once we'd tucked Jamie in for bed, we went downstairs and watched some TV.

When it got nearer our bedtime, I spoke.

"Haley, have you thought about what we're gonna do with Jamie tomorrow?"

She sighed and looked over at me.

"Yeah. You were right, I need to learn to not need to have him in my sight every second of the day that he's not at school or sleeping," she replied. "So I'll call Brooke tomorrow and see if she can pick him up, take him back to her place. She has a meeting with the adoption agency lady but she should be finished in time for Jamie to be picked up."

I smiled.

"That's great, Hales. It's the right thing to do."

"Yeah. Right, I'm gonna go to bed, you?"

"Yep," I replied.

"You going to go to the spare bedroom tonight? I think the paint fumes are all gone."

Oh yeah. I'd forgotten about that.

"Yeah, um... yeah, I'll do that. Better than this couch, anyway."

"Okay, great."

We walked up the stairs and into different rooms. It felt really strange. I hoped this room wasn't going to become a long-term residence for me. I was four steps away from the room I actually wanted to spend all my nights in, and I hoped to God that it wouldn't take long for me to be able to go back in there.

* * *

**Hope you enjoyed it! Review if you want to. Which you definitely do.**


	14. Better Than Love

**A/N: **Hey guys! I stayed up later than usual so I could finish this chapter last night but the login feature wouldn't work! Haha, so here it is now. Thank you for the reviews on the last chapter, it means a lot to hear what you think and get you guys' input! This chapter doesn't cover the whole of 5x13, the next chapter will have them when they're downstairs with the piano/basketball. And then I'll continue on with stuff we didn't see (which is a lot for the last few episodes of season 5!) and then go onto season 6 and so on. Hopefully you'll all continue reading that! Thanks for those of you who responded letting me know what you wanted for this story in regards to that.

Now, this being 5x13... I'm no "smut" writer, or a good one at that, as you can probably tell by this chapter. And what makes it even more difficult/weird is when you're writing it in the first person! Plus, this is my first time writing a scene like that. I've read plenty of NH fics that include smuttiness but writing that isn't really my forte. So apologies if the scene near the end isn't as good as you'd have hoped... there are other good smutty NH writers on this site, go find one of their stories for your fix if you'd like, haha. So please note that part of this chapter is sort of rated **M**, but it's really not that M.

This chapter is named after a song by Griffin House, and it's heard on the show in episode 5x06. If you listen to the lyrics it's actually a very fitting song (from Nathan's point of view) for season 5.

So read, hopefully enjoy... I know this is the chapter you've all been waiting for and I've been waiting to write it too, and I don't know if it came out the way I wanted it to or not. But I think it ain't too bad, so here you go! **Please review, **reading them prompts me to update faster!

* * *

The next day, Nathan and I had arranged for Brooke to pick up Jamie from school and drop him off at the house a few hours later. It felt strange, but I trusted Brooke and Nathan had convinced me it really was time to start moving past this Jamie thing.

Yesterday had been great. Things weren't back to the way they used to be yet, but it definitely felt like it. The three of us sitting there in the living room during that blackout... it just felt like things were really looking up.

We were just pulling up to the therapist's office when the subject of leaving Jamie out of our sights arose again.

"Do you think Brooke will know where to go to pick him up?"

"Haley, of course. She knows that she's to go pretty much right to the front door. They'll be fine, Jamie loves hanging out with Brooke."

"I know," I said hesitantly as we walked into the building and up the stairs. "It's just..."

"Hales, I get it. But you need to try and not think about it. You know that's he's going to be fine, but over-thinking it is only going to make you worry."

"I know, I know," I responded. "You're right. It's just hard."

As I said that, the therapist opened the door to her office.

"Nathan, Haley, great to see you. Come on in."

I glanced over at Nathan, remembering our conversation the other night about him feeling uncomfortable coming here, but he gave me a small, reassuring smile.

"Hey," I greeted Miranda, as I took my seat on the couch while Nathan sat on the other end.

"So I couldn't help but overhear you as you came in the door," she said. "If you don't mind my asking, what's so hard?"

"Um, we don't mind you asking," I said with a smile, looking over at Nathan who offered a weak smile. "It was probably going to come up in the session anyway. It was about, um, leaving Jamie without us. Since we're here we had to arrange for a friend to pick him up from school, which is the first time we've properly had him under someone else's care, besides the school," I told her.

"I understand. So what do you think gave you the nudge to let that happen? Why not just rearrange the appointment?"

"Er, Nathan, actually," I answered, looking over at him. "He helped me realise that I have to eventually move on, and if letting him be with our friend for a couple hours is going to start that healing process then it should happen."

I noticed Nathan smile shyly as I spoke.

"Well that's good," she replied. "How have you been doing this past week with fears about Jamie? Nathan?"

I couldn't help but wonder if she asked Nathan just so he would have to answer. He rarely volunteered if a question was posed to either one of us.

"Er, well, this week we had a bit of a scare when we were picking him up from school, but it turned out he was with a teacher inside. But for five minutes we didn't know where he was, and that scared both of us quite a bit," Nathan told her.

"I can imagine. Do you think that incident has been a speed bump in your journey to getting over what happened to Jamie at the wedding?"

"I think it has, for me at least," I admitted. "To be honest I wasn't getting that far on with my whole 'getting over it' thing, but I think the other day just slowed it down even more."

"And Nathan?"

"Um, probably, yeah."

I inwardly smiled as his vague response.

"Since the day you picked him up from school and couldn't see him, have you noticed yourselves being more watchful over him?" the therapist asked.

"Yeah," I answered immediately. "I guess I still find it hard to let Jamie out of my sight, it's just... I mean, it's been a month since he was abducted, is it so crazy that I would still hear echoes from that day, that I would still be a little overprotective?"

"Protective? Or overprotective? You said overprotective."

"Okay, well, you said it yourself, identification is the first step to recovery, right?" I said, remembering what she said a couple of weeks ago. It was true. I had been being far too overprotective of him. But I knew that what I was doing today, with allowing him to be in Brooke's care for a few hours, was helping me somewhat overcome that overprotectiveness.

"How have things been going since Nathan moved home?" she asked.

I looked over at him before answering.

"Better."

"Yeah, better," he echoed.

"We've spent the past four sessions discussing you and Nathan as a couple, as parents to Jamie. Let's talk about you as individuals. Who are you, Haley?"

I was a bit baffled by her question, and I wasn't really sure what she meant.

"You mean what do I do for a living or what are my hobbies, or...?"

"No, I mean, who are _you_?"

"Er..." I looked over to Nathan as if he could somehow help, but he looked as confused as I was. "I..." I wasn't really sure how to answer that. "I'm just... Haley. I... I love my job. Teaching. Helping people understand something, helping them achieve something that they maybe didn't know they had in them to do. I find that really rewarding. I... I like cooking, I come from a big family, I love music..." I was struggling to think of what to say but the therapist kept looking at me, clearly wanting me to continue without her having to prompt me. I could feel Nathan looking at me too. "I mean, we talk about ourselves as a couple and as parents because I feel that that's... that _is _who I am. I mean I'm obviously my own person, but for so many years Nathan and Jamie have been a huge part of my life. When someone asks me about myself without asking for specifics, the first thing I'd tell them is about my family. Nathan and Jamie. They're the biggest part of my life."

"Great, Haley. The reason I wanted you to go on in between your answers about cooking and teaching was because I was waiting for that glint in your eye, the pride in your voice that people get when they talk about the things they really care deeply about in life. It's clear that you love teaching and music, but the real spark came when you spoke about your family."

I smiled and nodded my head in agreement.

"Yeah. I mean, I am my own person, it's not like I had a bad life before I met Nathan or anything, and I've not changed who I am. I'm still just... a nerd," I said with a smile, glancing over at Nathan to see him smiling too. "But having them in my life has meant so much."

"And Nathan?" the therapist asked. "Who are you?"

"I'm... Haley's husband, Jamie's father. I don't really feel like I have anything that defines me other than them," he claimed.

I hated hearing that. That was a lie and we both knew it. As great as a husband and father he was, that wasn't _all _he was.

"Well Haley mentioned that she's still the same person that she was before the two of you met," the therapist said. "Can the same be said for you?"

"No. I was a totally different person back then. Pretty much everything I did was for me or my dad, and I was just selfish and stupid and mean to people I didn't even know. _Before_ I met Haley."

"So your selfishness was what defined you?" the therapist asked, amused.

"Well... I guess... basketball defined me," he said quietly, looking down at the floor.

I felt so terrible for him. I knew he had made mistakes but it just killed me knowing that he'd worked so hard to achieve his dream and it had been taken away from him when he was so close to reaching it.

"Aah. I see. The basketball player and the nerdy musician," she smiled.

I returned the smile.

"Now, what is it the two of you want? You're going through this rough patch, and you've said that living together again has improved things. But it's clear that some things are still out of reach. What do you want?"

"I want my family back," Nathan replied straight away. It was a bit surprising, seeing as he never usually volunteered an answer, but it was clear that he wanted us to hear what he had to say. He really did want our family back. "And I want Haley to trust me again. I want her to look at me the way she used to and see a better man than maybe I'll ever be... and I then want to be that man. And I will be, for her, and for Jamie."

"I wanna believe in Nathan again," I blurted out. It was true. I wanted to see that man that he had just said he was going to try and be, but I needed to believe that he could do it. I wanted to break through that barrier of insecurities I had to let myself fully believe in him again. That wall still needed a tiny bit for him to chip through and until that was done, believing in Nathan fully wasn't going to happen. "And I want to believe in the goodness of people, and I want my son to be safe, and I want him to be great, and I want that greatness to be seen, and appreciated. That's what I want."

"Do you think you're going to be able to achieve these things? Haley?"

"I think... I think believing in Nathan... that'll come if we keep getting stuff out in the open, if we keep talking and letting absolutely nothing hang over our heads," I replied truthfully. "As for my son being safe... he _is_ safe right now, but I just want it to always be that way, to never have that sort of fear again. And I hope that my son's greatness is appreciated, because he really deserves it. He's an amazing boy."

"And Nathan? Do you think you'll get what you want?"

"I think getting Haley to trust me again will mean the other things will just fall into place. She'll look at me like she used to, and I'll have my family back. I just hope that when she trusts me... it'll be soon."

"What do you mean by trust, Nathan? Trust that you'll be faithful, trust that you'll be protective, trust that you'll always be there...?"

"Just... trust that I'm not going to make any more stupid mistakes, I guess, that I really do want our family to be together again. Things have been going pretty great this week but sometimes I feel that she doesn't one hundred per cent believe that want this family more than anything. I do. And I don't want her to doubt that."

I could feel my insecurities screaming inside of me. I _knew_ he loved our family, I just wasn't a hundred per cent sure that he still _wanted _wanted me, like he used to. If he still wanted to touch me, or kiss me. I mean, it was stupid. He loved me. So he _wanted _me. But... we'd gone so long without sex and he'd been seeing Carrie swim naked... had his want for me faded after all this time that had gone by without us being intimate?

I really wished that stupid voice inside my head would shut up.

"And do you think you'll achieve that trust, Nathan? That you won't make more mistakes?"

He sighed.

"I think my track record goes against me, here. I mean, in the past six months, I've been to _two _bars, and both times I made stupid mistakes that made Haley disappointed in me."

"Is there anything in particular that brought on these huge mistakes you've made?" she questioned.

"My problems with my past are of my own doing. I'm stubborn, and I have a temper, and I don't always make the best decisions," he admitted.

"It must have been very difficult for you, coming so close to the NBA. Do you think about that much?"

I just stared at the floor. I hated that Nathan had to deal with this question.

"Sometimes. Yeah. I mean, sometimes, I wake up in the middle of the night, walk through town. Past the school; past the gym." I looked over at him. "And I can still... hear the echoes, you know?"

"You never told me that," I spoke up. This revelation had surprised me.

"It's not something I'm all that proud of," he said, looking back at me. "It's like..." he turned to face the therapist. "I'm not good with being vulnerable. In fact, this is probably the closest I've come to it."

He stopped, and looked at me.

"Well, the second closest."

"What's the first?"

"When I was a junior in high school, I took some stuff, to help me with my game. Drugs." I looked up at the therapist to see her reaction. I couldn't help but smile at the memory. I remembered being so scared when he collapsed, but when I think of that night, the memory that comes to mind isn't him lying on the basketball court. It was him telling me that I was all that mattered. "And it was a stupid thing to do," he continued, "And I ended up collapsing on the court and my father was all about, you know, covering it up for the scouts. But anyway, um... when I left the hospital, I went to see Haley, because I needed to know if she could forgive me." I looked over at him. "I wanted to know if I still had the chance to be great in her eyes. And when she did, when she... forgave me, that was the moment that everything changed for me. That was the moment I fell in love with her. This girl, who could see past all the mistakes I'd made." We shared a look where I just _knew _we were both remembering that night. My heart warmed at his words. That was when he fell in love with me? That night. That night really did change things. As we looked into eachothers eyes, I could tell we were both momentarily transported back to my bedroom and that moment. The moment when _he fell in love with me_. "I don't know," he went on, looking up at Miranda. "I guess, maybe, sometimes, I screw up because I want to feel that again. I suppose that sounds pretty broken."

A small silence surrounded us, before Miranda broke it.

"Well, the vulnerability in here perhaps doesn't come as close as that, then. So you make mistakes just so you can feel that same feeling of forgiveness?" she asked, slight sarcasm in her voice.

"No," Nathan corrected. "I don't... I don't screw up just so Haley can forgive me. That's not what I meant. But once I've screwed up and I don't know how to fix it... I just hope that Haley's going to be there to forgive me. It sounds selfish, and it probably is, but when I make mistakes, I know there's usually light at the end of the tunnel in the form of Haley. I don't mean that I can just make mistakes whenever I want and not feel bad because I think Haley's some pushover that'll just forgive me, even if that's what it sounds like... I don't mean that at all. It's just... I've felt that amazing moment of forgiveness from Haley that night in our junior year, and again last month when I stopped moping around in my wheelchair. And I hope I can feel that again when we fully recover from all of this."

I believed every word. God, I loved him.

"So, after Nathan's accident... you've told me you haven't been fully intimate since then, and I'm assuming - maybe I'm wrong to assume - that that hasn't changed this week?"

I shook my head.

"Well, okay, so even though you haven't slept with eachother since then, did you get very far in making it past those months before you had troubles with the nanny?"

"We talked it all out, yeah," Nathan replied.

"Yeah, those four months are no longer hanging over our heads, we got past that weeks ago," I confirmed.

"But you still hadn't gotten back to the couple you had been previously?"

"No," I answered hesitantly. I looked at Nathan, then back at her. "I think... we spent so much time talking about those four months and getting through it and getting our feelings about it out in the open that... that we didn't really focus on communicating as properly as we should have about our lives in the moment. About what was going on in the present, instead of the past. And then when we were at that bar, before Nathan almost fought Jason, I thought we were maybe rounding a corner, but... I don't know, it just showed me that things weren't how they should have been. Nathan and I should have been on the same page when it came to being in a bar and his temper and how he would react, and everything. And then obviously we weren't communicating properly about Carrie. We'd had this four-month lapse in communication and we needed to get that back, and to do that we needed to talk to eachother about _everything, _not just those four months."

"What do you think is making things difficult for you to fully open up with Nathan again now, Haley? Emotionally and physically? Are there still problems with communication?"

There it was. The question that prompted me to be open about my insecurities. And when those were revealed, I'd maybe get some answers. _Why _was it so difficult for me? _What _was holding me back from being so open with Nathan?

"I think not knowing is the hardest part," I answered. "Not knowing what our marriage... means to Nathan. If he still want the same things out of relationship that I want, if he still finds me sexy or if he still... wants me..."

"How could you not know that?" he asked immediately, turning his head.

His immediate reply caused me to feel some insecurities wash away. But not all.

"The name Carrie comes to mind. Why didn't you just tell me about the flirting?"

"I don't know."

"Did you like it?"

"Maybe. Maybe I just... needed it."

I wasn't sure I was hearing this correctly. I could feel tears welling in my eyes.

"Why, because I don't flirt with you after a long day of wrestling high school students and parenting our son?"

"No," he answered simply. "Because you don't look at me like that anymore. And I get it, you know? I haven't been worthy of that look from you in a long time, but God Haley, I miss that."

I looked away from him, not sure what to make of that.

"When was the first time you felt a sense of accomplishment, Nathan?"

"I guess... when I started playing basketball."

"And the support of your father?"

"When I started playing basketball."

"And this year all that stopped. All the praise and adoration... at least until your nanny started swimming naked. It's not the craziest case of transference I've ever heard."

"So what, I need to start swimming naked to help my husband's ego?" I asked. All this didn't seem to be making any sense.

"No, you don't- Haley, this is not your fault. It's not."

I was glad to hear him say that. Deep down I already knew it wasn't but hearing him say it just really made me feel better. It wasn't my actions that caused all this, it was Nathan's. And he was owning up to that.

"Why not swim naked?" the therapist suddenly said, interrupting my thoughts." You could try it together, it might be fun. After all, you are 22. Tell me something, when was the last time the two of you did something young and foolish together?"

"With all due respect, Nathan and I have been married almost 6 years, we have a son who's almost five... we don't get to be young," I answered honestly.

"Everyone gets to be young. Especially when you are."

I considered her words, and knew Nathan was doing the same. Since Nathan's depression, we hadn't really had the chance to do anything young and fun together... we were both still recovering from that time, and we had Jamie to think about, and then... everything happened. I remembered a day, about 8 months earlier, where Nathan, Jamie, Lucas and I had all gone to the theme park together. Me and Nathan wanted to go on a rollercoaster so we left Jamie with Lucas while we tried out a bunch of rides. The day out for Jamie had turned more into a day out for me and Nathan. That seemed like the last time we'd really done anything for ourselves, something fun and carefree.

"So," Miranda continued, before being interrupted by Nathan.

"Hey, um, can I just say that that whole... 'transference' thing you said about praise... that's not what it was with Carrie." I looked over at him. "I didn't like that she was flirting, I hated that she was giving me that kind of attention. And I was disgusted that she would swim naked in our pool. But I think... I think I just longed for the type attention she was giving me to be from you instead. I didn't like that she was doing it; I just wished that it was you giving me that look. And I know I haven't deserved that look in so long, so please know that none of this is your fault, but... I just missed it. What I said last week is true... I know it's stupid and I know it was a mistake and I know to not make that mistake again, but I just didn't want to hurt you by telling you about it Haley, not when we were still fragile."

I nodded. It seemed that with pretty much every word he spoke today, a piece of that tiny fragment of wall that was still up around me was being taken away.

"And I mean, yeah, I guess I miss the praise from the crowd in basketball, but that's not what this was," Nathan added for the therapist.

"I see. Let's talk a little more about basketball, Nathan. I find it interesting, that when you describe yourselves, you describe being parents, and spouses, and siblings, and friends... but Nathan you never once described yourself as a basketball player."

There it was, _again. _Her talking about his career, his _dream_, that he'd just missed out on. I hated having to see him talk about it so much. I knew he could talk about it with me or Lucas, but having a stranger pry in something that hurt so much had to be difficult for him.

"That's because I'm not anymore."

I hated that that was his response.

"Why not?"

"Well, that's sorta what happens when your spine gets crushed," he replied.

"And the doctors definitively said you couldn't play."

"Well, there's no such thing as 'definitively', but nobody's ever come back from something like this before."

"But you're Nathan Scott."

I couldn't help but smile at that. As much as it upset me to hear her ask about the dream that had been taken away from him, hearing her remind him that he was Nathan Scott, the _great, _amazing Nathan Scott was good.

"I'm not that Nathan Scott," was his reply.

"And Haley, you never refer to yourself as a musician."

"Yeah," I replied, surprised that the attention had suddenly been converted to me. "Yeah, well I haven't recorded in a really long time."

"Why not?"

"I had a son to raise, and... Nathan's accident."

"And now?"

"Now, I still have a son to raise... because I haven't found a really unattractive nanny yet," I joked, looking at Nathan.

That's how much this session had helped.

I'd learned that Nathan didn't like the attention from Carrie; he wanted me, not her; he seemed to find it ridiculous that I doubted the fact that he wanted me; and he spoke about how much he loved me... And here I was, making jokes about the thing that caused us to be sitting here in the first place. It felt good. Like a weight had been lifted. I was believing in Nathan again.

I couldn't help but notice that we must have subconsciously been moving closer and closer towards one another as the session went on... we'd started out at opposite ends of the couch, where we had sat every therapy session, but we were both getting pretty near the middle now.

"Look, I'm only as intelligent as the diplomas on my wall, but here's a thought," Miranda began. "Maybe you aren't the people you fell in love with because neither of you is trying to be the people you fell in love with."

There was a pause for a moment as we all looked at eachother, before Nathan spoke.

"As much as I love it when Haley sings, and it probably would be great for her to record again," he said, looking over at me, "Her not making music recently has nothing to do with what's happened. I screwed up, and before we got the chance to recover from that screw-up, I made another one. Haley's still the amazing girl I fell in love with, whether she sings again or not," he said. "But she definitely should," he added with a smile. "She's amazing."

I felt a blush creep over my face, before pretty much echoing what he'd just said.

"Yeah, even though not being able to play basketball caused a drastic change for Nathan, that's different now. He's not playing, but he's still Nathan. The Nathan I fell in love with was a guy who faced up to his mistakes, did amazing things for me and was just always there for me. And that's still the Nathan I see now," I told Miranda.

"That's great to hear," she answered. "I'm really glad to hear that. But I still think that going after your individual dreams is important. Haley, why don't you record again?"

"I won't be an absentee parent," I answered. "If I have to sacrifice some things, then so be it."

"That's noble Haley. But it also might be part of the problem. You both have individual passions, individual gifts, individual dreams. And you should, especially at your age. Maybe if you spent a little more time being selfish 22 year olds, you might love yourself a bit more. And resent eachother a bit less."

As soon as she said that, Nathan pretty much took the words I was about to say about him right out of my mouth.

"I don't resent Haley, or Jamie. They're the two best things that ever happened to me."

"Yeah. I agree with that," I spoke up. "We're the best things that ever happened to him." I gave him a smile before correcting myself. "No, I agree that Nathan and Jamie are the best and most important things that I have."

"What about music?" she asked me. "I asked Nathan this before... What was it like, hearing the cheers of enthusiastic sold out crowds every night?"

"Incredible," I answered truthfully. "It was humbling and wonderful."

"But it took you away from Nathan."

"Yeah. And we really struggled then," I said, remembering my tour during junior year and my struggle to regain Nathan's trust at the start of senior year. "I mean, I'm not avoiding music now because I'm afraid that that's gonna happen again, but..."

"Good," she said quickly. "Leaving Jamie out of all this, would you say that those were your best days, where you were happiest with yourself?" she asked.

"Well I wasn't proud of myself because I knew Nathan was hurting... But personally, I guess I loved it, yeah."

"What about you, Nathan? Best days ever, playing basketball in front of thousands?"

"The road trips sucked, because I was away from Haley and Jamie, but for me... yeah."

"If you could have those days back, do you think you might do things differently? Maybe treat eachother a bit differently in the face of those dreams?"

"Yeah," Nathan answered.

"Definitely," I said right after.

"Maybe you can. Maybe you will."

In the beat of silence that followed, Nathan and I looked at eachother and he reached out and took my hand in his.

It felt... _right. _It just felt right. Sitting there, holding hands. It also felt amazing. It felt like an eternity since we'd last sat like this. We just sat there for a moment, stroking eachothers hands.

"Maybe..." the therapist spoke up, "You should both go after your individual dreams. Whether or not you reach the top doesn't matter, but having something for you, something that's yours, that you can have, or aim for... it's something we should all have. The two of you are very lucky that you have eachother supporting your individual dreams. Now, we're nearly out of time," she said suddenly as she glanced at her clock, causing me to release Nathan's hand so we could get ready to leave in a minute, "So let's end the session as we have every week... Haley, tell me some things you love about Nathan."

"I... love that he's here with me, every week, without fail," I said while stroking his thigh, knowing how uncomfortable coming here made him, "And I love that he holds himself accountable for his mistakes. And I _love _that he's so protective over me and Jamie. And... I love that shirt that he's wearing..." I said, looking at how amazing he looked. "And maybe the way that he wears it..." I said with a small laugh, looking over at him as he returned the smile. It was so much easier to talk to him like that again now that my insecurities about him wanting me had vanished.

"Nathan-" Miranda began, before the timer indicating the end of the session beeped.

"It's okay, really, I'm not that great at taking a complement," I smiled.

"Oh, well, we'll be working on that next week then," she said. I smiled, but I really didn't think there was going to need to _be _a next week. We didn't even bother arranging another meeting. "You two are going to be okay. I really think so," she said, looking at us with a smile.

I couldn't help but agree with her. I smiled at her, then at Nathan.

"Thanks," I said, before walking out of the office, Nathan behind me.

We walked down to the car, Nathan taking the driver's seat. Before we took off, Nathan spoke.

"That was a good session."

"Yeah," I quietly agreed.

It really had been.

"You okay?" he asked me. I didn't know if he was asking about me being okay about Jamie or about the session or about whatever, but it didn't matter.

"Yeah," I said with a smile and a nod. I was _very_ okay.

We drove home in silence. It felt sort of awkward, but it didn't matter. I sat back in the seat and just smiled to myself. Things were really looking up. I looked over at Nathan, and he looked back at me. Our eyes locked, just for a second, but that one second before he returned his eyes to the road were enough to make my heart race. I loved looking into his eyes like that.

I realised that I really hadn't been looking at Nathan in that way for a while. The past couple of weeks we'd had plenty of meaningful looks, but none that really showed my proper desire for him. The same type of looks I'd been missing from him for the past week or two.

When we made it home, we were still being silent. We both took off our jackets and hung them up.

"I'm... gonna go make the bed," I said. I pretty much said that because I wanted to break the silence. It wasn't awkward in a bad way, but I just didn't want it to keep going on. He followed me upstairs and waited at the door as I began sorting out the pillows and the duvet on the bed.

"It's quiet around here without Jamie," he spoke. It really was. He was usually home round about this time of the day, telling us all about his day at school.

"He's with Brooke. Baby steps," I said, remembering what we said the other night. One step at a time.

"Yeah. How you sleeping these days?"

"So-so, Jamie tosses around like a Tasmanian devil," I smiled, glancing at the messed up duvet, a result of his night-time kicks.

"Yeah, he should probably get back to his own bed soon, the whole separation thing," Nathan said. "Or he could sleep in the spare bedroom, with me."

I turned to him, and nodded hesitantly. Did I even want Nathan to be going to the spare bedroom?

"You know, sometimes I find your goodness... staggering."

I turned to look at him.

"I didn't get a chance to tell you in the session, but your kindness is overwhelming, Haley. You saved my life."

I kept looking at him. My heart rate was beginning to pick up again.

"And if I haven't said it lately, you're also sexy as hell."

And my heart rate increased even more. I smiled at him, before looking down sheepishly at the bed. That was it. That wall... it was completely gone. No wall around my heart anymore. My heart was just there, naked and exposed. To Nathan.

He turned to leave, before I heard myself speak up to stop him.

"Hey." He turned back to face me. "I was thinking, um... not sleeping, in this bed... might not be so bad tonight, if you wanted to... try it with me," I said, very aware that this was me allowing Nathan full access to my heart. No wall.

The look on his face combined with the way he walked quickly towards me caused me to smile as he held my face and kissed me with enough passion for us to both fall onto the bed.

The feel of his lips on mine after what felt like a lifetime was one of the best feelings ever. I had missed this so much. My heart was racing. I lay underneath him and ran my hands all over his back before pulling away from his lips.

"You got any more of that sexy talk?" I asked.

"What, the kindness stuff? Or the sexy stuff?" he teased, as I felt him begin to undo my buttons as his face hovered above mine.

"Sexy," I whispered.

"You have a serious ass, Haley James."

I laughed as he kissed me before sitting up and pulling his shirt over his head and tossing it aside. As he returned to kiss me, I reached out my arms so I could pull him down towards me. Our hands travelled all over eachother before I just laid mine above my head on the bed behind me.

This was all too amazing.

We were _us _again. Nathan and Haley. No pain, no drama, nothing weighing us down. Just the two of us, loving eachother and showing eachother just _how_ much we loved eachother. Our kiss began to gain momentum, his tongue tracing my lips and me granting him access. Our tongues tangled wetly as he continued unbuttoning by shirt. I had missed this so much. The taste of him, the feel of him.

Nathan moved his lips down to my neck before kissing the exposed skin on my torso that was revealed from him unbuttoning my shirt. When the last button was undone we quickly sat up so I could shrug it off and toss it on the floor before we returned to our earlier position of laying back on the bed.

I grabbed his neck and guided his face back to mine. I had wanted to do this for so long.

_Six months._

Our kisses were becoming increasingly heated, and I pulled away for a second for some much needed air.

Our eyes locked, and we were both breathing so heavily, our faces so close to one another.

"I love you," I breathed.

There was a pause as Nathan's eyes bored into my own, looking into them deeply.

"I love you too," he said before crashing his lips against mine. I kissed him with all the passion I had inside me.

"Hey," I said after a few moments, breaking away from the kiss. "You know that, right?"

"Know what?" he asked, slowly stroking my abdomen.

"That I love you."

"Sure I do," he replied with a small smile.

"But..." I hated that my question meant the kissing stopped, but I needed to get this off my chest. "In therapy the other week, you said you were relieved to hear me say that on the phone that night."

He stopped rubbing my stomach and brought his hand up to stroke my hair.

"It's okay. I think... I think I was so happy to hear you say it because I'd been a jackass for so long, and hearing you say it made me think that things were going to get back to the way they were."

I nodded.

"Just... never doubt how much I love you, please," I told him. "I love you so much. And that's _never _going to change."

His forehead lowered and leaned against my own as he closed his eyes. His lips brushed over mine before planting several small, slow pecks on them.

His hand moved to my back and unhooked my bra. He took it off slowly before throwing it on the floor.

Things had suddenly slowed. I could feel his eyes boring into my own, but all I wanted was to feel Nathan entirely.

"Kiss me," I whispered.

He obeyed and kissed me passionately as my hands reached for his belt buckle, wanting desperately to rid Nathan of his clothes. I'd gone too many days in the past few weeks seeing his bare chest without being able to do anything about it... and this sure as hell wasn't one of those times.

The sudden urgency of our kisses and constant touches showed no means of slowing down, and that was fine by me. Nathan assisted me in the removal of his jeans before helping me get rid of my own.

We lay there, both with just our lower halves restricted by underwear. My legs were either side of his hips, so I bent my knees and used my toes to guide his boxers down his legs.

He smiled against my lips when he noticed what I was doing, and kicked them off as soon as they were near his feet. I had felt his arousal through his jeans and now seeing it, so evident, feeling how hard he was against my skin... it made me feel so desired. I hadn't felt like that in months. The way he kissed me, the way he touched me, the way I could tell I made him feel...

"God, I missed you so much, Haley," he whispered breathlessly as began caressing my breasts. The feelings he was creating inside of me were just indescribable. My breaths were becoming increasingly erratic.

"I... missed you too," I made out between moans of pleasure from what he was doing to me.

His hands dropped from my breasts and made their way down to my waist. He fingered the hem of my panties before looking up at me, as though he needed reassurance that I wanted this. As soon as I nodded he pulled them off quickly and threw them away.

"In a rush?" I laughed.

"Uh huh," he smiled. He kissed down the column between my breasts and all the way down my stomach before stopping and returning back to kiss my lips. He adjusted his position so I could feel his hardness against my already wet core.

"Nathan..." I managed to breathe out. I needed that friction, the feeling between my legs wouldn't let up until he was fully inside of me.

He needed no further assurance and buried himself within me.

"God, Nathan," I gasped.

This is what I had craved for so long. Nathan inside of me. He was so big, so... _satisfying_. It felt _so _good. Nothing compared to this feeling. Nothing at all.

He was moving at a torturously slow pace before I used my feet to press against his ass, letting him know that I wanted more.

"Faster," I breathed.

He instantly complied, and the delicious sensations he was illicting inside of me caused me to feel the faint stirrings of my orgasm somewhere inside of me. I hadn't felt like this in so long. I felt such a whir of emotions; happiness, relief, pleasure, love, want, desire... I never wanted this to end.

As he continued to move inside me I held onto his back for leverage with one hand as the other went to his neck, playing softly with the hairs at the nape of his neck.

"You feel so good," he whispered hotly in my ear.

"So do you," I replied. "I- I'm so close..."

His mouth left wet kisses along my neck and shoulder before I felt him sucking and biting on my breast as his hand gently squeezed my ass.

"Nathan..."

"You're perfect."

Those words were enough to induce my release. My back arched as the waves of pleasure surged through me, soon followed by the feel of Nathan reaching his own climax. He collapsed on top of me, his head between my neck and shoulder.

"God, I love you so much," he said softly.

As we both regained our breaths, he propped himself on his forearms to take his weight off me.

"That was amazing," I said, bring my hands up to cup his cheeks.

"C'mon," Nathan motioned, moving us so we were lying on the bed in the proper direction, our heads on the pillows, and he pulled the brown comforter over us.

"I guess there wasn't much use in me making the bed then, huh?" I teased.

He laughed, before placing a kiss on the centre of my forehead.

"Nope, not really. God, I missed you Haley. I'm so sorry-"

"Hey," I interrupted him, bringing my finger up to his lips to stop him from yet another apology. "I know. It's okay. It's in the past. And quite frankly I'm very content in the present. Right here, with you," I said, stroking his chest.

He tightened his hold around me.

"You're amazing," he smiled, causing me to blush. "And I love that blush. And that smile..."

"You know what I love about you?" I interrupted him.

"What's that?"

"Everything."

He grinned.

"I am so happy, Haley. I'm so glad we've made it past all this..."

"We can make it past anything," I assured him, still rubbing his chest and torso. I looked up at him and grinned before running my hand down before it landed on his butt. "Hey, you have a pretty serious ass too, Nathan Scott," I said, giving it a squeeze.

He laughed.

"Nah, not quite as great as yours," he said, giving it a small smack underneath the comforter. "Hey," he said, his tone suddenly a bit more serious. "Today, you said... you said you didn't know whether I still wanted you. What made you doubt that?"

I felt so stupid, but I wanted to tell him the truth.

"I just... This is going to sound really stupid, but... whenever you saw me when I didn't have much clothes on, you never looked interested... at all. You barely even looked at all, and I guess... I probably just read too much into it, I don't know."

"Hales," he said, soft pain in his voice. "I'm so sorry. I did that deliberately so I could control myself. If I watched you take your top off or walk around in a towel, it would have been pretty damn difficult for me to resist throwing you on this bed and taking you like I just did," he laughed. "Seriously. And I knew you weren't ready for that, so I didn't want to look and make you feel uncomfortable."

I smiled as I breathed out a sigh. Why had I been so stupid?

"I love you."

"I love you too, Haley James."

"Haley James Scott," I corrected him.

"Yep, and that's how it's always going to be. I never want to have that feeling again, Haley. The feeling I might lose you. Everything that happens, no matter how good or bad it might affect you or me... I'll tell you."

"Thank you," I whispered. "I don't wanna lose you either."

As we lay there holding eachother, the past six months seemed insignificant. I mean, they were definitely significant in our lives, but the mistakes that had been made, the lapses in communication, the things that had been said... none of that mattered. What did matter was that we had made it through it. Together. We were here, holding eachother, loving eachother. That's all we had wanted for so long. And nothing was going to change that.

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**Thanks for reading! Please review! :)**


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